Home-manager: sessionVariables not persisted after log out

mathematica · October 27, 2024, 4:37pm

Hi all, I am using standalone flake home-manager to manage everything outside of my NixOS system settings. I am using ZSH as my default shell, which I did not configure before installing home-manager.
For context, I am currently using Gnome Wayland (with autologin, if relevant), with my home-manager and NixOS configs flakes following the unstable branch.
When I set the following in my home.nix file:

  programs.neovim = {
    enable = true;
    defaultEditor = true;
  };

  # ...
  
  home.sessionVariables = {
    EDITOR = "nvim";
  };

  # Let Home Manager manage bash
  programs.bash.enable = true;
  # Let Home Manager manage zsh
  programs.zsh = {
    enable = true;
    oh-my-zsh = {
      enable = true;
      # ... set theme
    };
  };

The correct EDITOR is set on initial boot (nvim), but if I log out and back in again it is reset to nano.
When I add the following it works as expected:

programs.zsh = {
  # ...
  # Have to add as home.sessionVariables and programs.neovim.defaultEditor do not work on logout/login? Maybe due to guard?
 sessionVariables = {
    EDITOR = "nvim";
    VISUAL = "nvim";
  };
};

I have also set programs.zsh.enable = true and set pkgs.zsh as the default shell for my user in my NixOS configuration.nix, and do not make other changes to zsh or the environment variables there. I have checked that the shell is not a login shell - when I run zsh --login it initializes the session vars as expected.

Is setting the program.zsh.sessionVariables the correct way to do this, or am I missing something as to why home.sessionVariables is not working as expected? Thanks a lot!

dawidd6 · October 27, 2024, 9:47pm

This is a known issue. See:

github.com/nix-community/home-manager

`home.sessionVariables` has no effect when using a graphical desktop environment

opened 05:06PM - 27 Jan 20 UTC

closed 08:20PM - 03 Sep 21 UTC

sigwinch28

status: stale

At the time of writing, the contents `home.sessionVariables` are placed in `~/.p…rofile`. As I use KDE Plasma, these variables never get loaded for me because: - `/etc/profile` on NixOS 19.09 _does not_ source `~/.profile` - sddm _does not_ source `~/.profile` - Konsole and other terminal emulators start _non-login_ interactive shells by default (and therefore do not load `~/.bash_profile` or `~/.profile`, but `~/.bashrc` instead) For example, if I set: ``` home.sessionVariables = { EDITOR = "emacs" }; ``` I get: ``` [joe@mycomputer:~] $ echo $EDITOR nano ``` My `~/.profile`, `~/.bash_profile`, and `~/.bashrc` files are all managed by home-manager and their contents are as follows: ``` # ~/.profile # -*- mode: sh -*- . "/home/joe/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/hm-session-vars.sh" ``` ``` # ~/.bash_profile # -*- mode: sh -*- # include .profile if it exists [[ -f ~/.profile ]] && . ~/.profile # include .bashrc if it exists [[ -f ~/.bashrc ]] && . ~/.bashrc ``` ``` # ~/.bashrc # -*- mode: sh -*- # Commands that should be applied only for interactive shells. if [[ $- == *i* ]]; then HISTFILE="$HOME/.bash_history" HISTFILESIZE=100000 HISTSIZE=10000 shopt -s histappend shopt -s checkwinsize shopt -s extglob shopt -s globstar shopt -s checkjobs fi ``` To make matters worse, it seems that NixOS doesn't make an authoritative decision about whether `~/.profile` (or actually, whether any other file) will be reliably sourced at login when using a graphical environment (https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/5200) If I log in via the console or via SSH however, this _does_ count as a bash login shell and my environment variables are set correctly. For now my current workaround is to put the following in my system's `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix` which applies a workaround at the system level: ``` environment.loginShellInit = '' if [ -e $HOME/.profile ] then . $HOME/.profile fi ''; ``` but I could just as easily put the following in my `home.nix`: ``` home.file.".xprofile".text = '' if [ -e $HOME/.profile ] then . $HOME/.profile fi ''; ``` I also think I could get around this by putting `xsession.enable = true;` in my `home.nix` which would add the necessary `if [ -e $HOME/.profile ] ...` code to my `~/.xprofile`. Any comments or suggested solutions to this quirk between home-manager and NixOS, or anything in the documentation I have missed?

github.com/nix-community/home-manager

bug: hm-session-vars forces variables to be only set once, forcing log-out or reboot for Gnome users

opened 12:05PM - 18 May 23 UTC

Bujiraso

bug status: stale triage

### Are you following the right branch? - [X] My Nixpkgs and Home Manager versi…ons are in sync ### Is there an existing issue for this? - [X] I have searched the existing issues ### Issue description Within ` ~/nix-profile/etc/profile.d/hm-session-vars.sh` are the lines: ``` # Only source this once. if [ -n "$__HM_SESS_VARS_SOURCED" ]; then return; fi ``` Let's call this a "reload blocker". Perhaps these were intended for performance boost but they are having a tremendously faulty effect in a Gnome graphical session. Gnome loads the user's profile and other variables while logging them in, and these variables (including the reload blocker) are loaded. This means that after the user changes hm-session-vars in their configuration, every single terminal they open has the *old* variables. The new variables are blocked from loading by the reload blocker. This forces the user to log-out (expensive in time and closes all programs) or to reboot entirely in my case. The reboot may be a bug in Gnome, but the fix is simple: *let's add an option to disable these lines within home-manager*. From my vantage, the tiny amount of variables being reloaded poses absolutely zero performance impact, so I would love for these to be hot-reloaded on every terminal. ### Maintainer CC _No response_ ### System information ```markdown - system: `"x86_64-linux"` - host os: `Linux 6.3.1-zen2-1-zen, Arch Linux, noversion, rolling` - multi-user?: `yes` - sandbox: `yes` - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.15.0` - nixpkgs: `/home/nicholas/.nix-defexpr/channels/nixpkgs` ```

github.com/nix-community/home-manager

can't set EDITOR in X

opened 01:46AM - 20 Jan 18 UTC

closed 02:02AM - 06 May 21 UTC

krey

status: stale

I have set my editor to `vim` using ```nix home.sessionVariables.EDITOR = "v…im"; ``` Home Manager bakes this setting into `~/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/hm-session-vars.sh`. This script is never run twice, because it's guarded by the variable `__HM_SESS_VARS_SOURCED`. I added ```sh echo $__HM_SESS_VARS_SOURCED ``` to the top of my `.zshenv` and observed the following: - In the ttys, it prints an empty line when I log in - In X, it prints `1` when I open a terminal emulator So the issue is, somewhere in the process of starting X, `~/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/hm-session-vars.sh` is sourced and then it cannot be sourced again, and then `/etc/zshenv` sets my editor to `nano` :(

I’m working around this bug like that: nixcfg/modules/home-manager/basic/fish.nix at 0e544e140e7ca2dd0f7191bc59d19f2a304947d4 · dawidd6/nixcfg · GitHub (you must be sure it won’t break anything on your system though, i.e. sourcing hm-session-vars.sh file can be repeated, so no PATH modification allowed for example)

Tarow · November 24, 2024, 3:28pm

I have the same issue as OP, and after i went through the linked Github issues i’m still not 100% sure whats going on. In some of the linked issues, using home.sessionVariables does not work at all since some Desktop Environments did/do not read ~/.profile.

However using GNOME/GDM the home.sessionVariables are actually applied correctly on first login after a boot. For example my EDITOR is also correctly said to nvim. Just after a logout/login, some session variables get overridden (EDITOR is set to nano all of a sudden).

I assume the /etc/profile might get sourced again. But if i logout+login again, why would /etc/profile get sourced, but this time ~/.profile doesn’t? Whats the difference between my initial login and any subsequent login?

Maybe you have an explaination for this. Would be great to get this working in a consistent way.