So I was trying to build the keydogger, a C-language program from github (I am using flake) but I was getting a very strange error even though everything is seemingly fine?
Command ran:
nix build .#keydogger
Error:
error: flake 'git+file:///home/abdulla/.dotfiles?dir=myApplications' does not provide attribute 'packages.x86_64-linux.keydogger', 'legacyPackages.x86_64-linux.keydogger' or 'keydogger'
I tried to look it up online and even asked Chatgpt but chatgpt keeps telling me to repeat the correction I already made again and again. I have been kind of breaking my head at this simple problem for the last 2 hours but can’t seem to get it to work. Can anyone help me out here?
Here’s my file structure:
.
├── flake.lock
├── flake.nix
└── keydogger.nix
Here’s the content of my flake.nix:
# flake.nix
{
description = "Testing";
inputs = {
nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
};
outputs = { self, nixpkgs, ... }:
let
system = "x86_64-linux";
pkgs = import nixpkgs { inherit system; config = {}; overlays = []; };
lib = pkgs.lib;
in {
packages = {
keydogger = pkgs.callPackage ./keydogger.nix { };
};
defaultPackage.x86_64-linux = self.packages.x86_64-linux.keydogger; # chatgpt answer had this line, so I put this here, though removing or adding this line did nothing.
};
}
Here’s the content of my keydogger.nix:
# keydogger.nix
{ stdenv, fetchFromGitHub, gcc, make, wl-clipboard }:
stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
pname = "keydogger";
version = "1.0";
src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "jarusll";
repo = "keydogger";
rev = "main"; # Use a specific commit hash for reproducibility
sha256 = ""; # Placeholder
};
buildInputs = [
wl-clipboard
gcc
make
];
buildPhase = ''
echo "Building keydogger..."
make
'';
installPhase = ''
echo "Installing keydogger..."
mkdir -p $out/bin
cp -r * $out/bin
'';
}
I would really appreciate any guidance you can give me here~ Thank you~
It’s as the error says, you have packages.kdogger, you need packages.x86_64-linux.kdogger
Also, your derivation has some issues, I recommend reading the nixpkgs manual to see what’s already provided in stdenv and reading nix.dev for best practices in packages.
(And don’t rely on chatgpt for nix, it’s usually atrocious.)
2 Likes
Thank you for the correction and suggestion, I will look into the nixpkgs manual to write better derivation~
These are the changes I made to the flake.nix (I used ${}) :
...
let
system = "x86_64-linux";
pkgs = import nixpkgs { inherit system; config = {}; overlays = []; };
lib = pkgs.lib;
in {
packages = {
${system} = {
keydogger = pkgs.callPackage ./keydogger.nix { };
};
};
...
Even though the build runs a bit longer but I get a new error now:
error:
… while evaluating a branch condition
at /nix/store/887hpp8a2i99n9jjwcvz6qkhhhqsvzkg-source/lib/customisation.nix:263:8:
262|
263| in if missingArgs == {}
| ^
264| then makeOverridable f allArgs
… while calling the 'listToAttrs' builtin
at /nix/store/887hpp8a2i99n9jjwcvz6qkhhhqsvzkg-source/lib/attrsets.nix:647:5:
646| set:
647| listToAttrs (concatMap (name: let v = set.${name}; in if pred name v then [(nameValuePair name v)] else []) (attrNames set));
| ^
648|
(stack trace truncated; use '--show-trace' to show the full trace)
error: getting status of '/nix/store/lrk2jcm53w7brh9k72a4l49gf3v63rxn-source/myApplications/keydogger.nix': No such file or directory
What could be causing this?~
I ran nix build again after changing ${system} to x86_64-linux just to check but the error remains. :\
You forgot to git-add, probably.
Apologies for my late reply, I didn’t get notification for some reason~
I tried to build after git-add but no success 
This is the error I get, I added --show-trace option to the nix build:
$ nix build .#keydogger --show-trace
error:
… from call site
at /nix/store/3xvw9g3bpj3yb86j0d6szap7r55vfn3y-source/myApplications/flake.nix:18:21:
17| x86_64-linux = {
18| keydogger = pkgs.callPackage ./home/abdulla/.dotfiles/myApplications/keydogger.nix { };
| ^
19| busybox = pkgs.callPackage ./busybox.nix { };
… while calling 'callPackageWith'
at /nix/store/887hpp8a2i99n9jjwcvz6qkhhhqsvzkg-source/lib/customisation.nix:212:35:
211| */
212| callPackageWith = autoArgs: fn: args:
| ^
213| let
… from call site
at /nix/store/887hpp8a2i99n9jjwcvz6qkhhhqsvzkg-source/lib/customisation.nix:225:10:
224| # Filter out arguments that have a default value
225| (filterAttrs (name: value: ! value)
| ^
226| # Filter out arguments that would be passed
… while calling 'filterAttrs'
at /nix/store/887hpp8a2i99n9jjwcvz6qkhhhqsvzkg-source/lib/attrsets.nix:646:5:
645| pred:
646| set:
| ^
647| listToAttrs (concatMap (name: let v = set.${name}; in if pred name v then [(nameValuePair name v)] else []) (attrNames set));
… from call site
at /nix/store/887hpp8a2i99n9jjwcvz6qkhhhqsvzkg-source/lib/customisation.nix:215:15:
214| f = if isFunction fn then fn else import fn;
215| fargs = functionArgs f;
| ^
216|
… while calling 'functionArgs'
at /nix/store/887hpp8a2i99n9jjwcvz6qkhhhqsvzkg-source/lib/trivial.nix:975:18:
974| */
975| functionArgs = f:
| ^
976| if f ? __functor
error: getting status of '/nix/store/3xvw9g3bpj3yb86j0d6szap7r55vfn3y-source/myApplications/home': No such file or directory