Nixpkgs unfree configs not respected

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1

Hello,

I have module that install non-free applications and allow them using allowUnfreePredicate (also tried allowUnfree config) like these.

{ config, pkgs, lib, ... }:

let
   upkg = import <unstable> {};
in rec {
  nixpkgs.config = {
    allowUnfreePredicate = pkg: (builtins.elem (lib.getName pkg) [
      builtins.trace (lib.getName upkg.slack) (lib.getName upkg.slack)
      builtins.trace (lib.getName upkg.obsidian) (lib.getName upkg.obsidian)
      "slack"
      "obsidian"
    ]);
  };

  environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
    upkg.slack
    upkg.obsidian
  ];
};

Despite that, it still conflict whenever I use obsidian and slack package.

building Nix...
building the system configuration...
error: Package ā€˜obsidian-0.14.15ā€™ in /nix/store/xxxxxxxx-unstable/unstable/pkgs/applications/misc/obsidian/default.nix:18 has an unfree license (ā€˜obsidianā€™), refusing to evaluate.

       a) To temporarily allow unfree packages, you can use an environment variable
          for a single invocation of the nix tools.

            $ export NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNFREE=1

        Note: For `nix shell`, `nix build`, `nix develop` or any other Nix 2.4+
        (Flake) command, `--impure` must be passed in order to read this
        environment variable.

       b) For `nixos-rebuild` you can set
         { nixpkgs.config.allowUnfree = true; }
       in configuration.nix to override this.

       Alternatively you can configure a predicate to allow specific packages:
         { nixpkgs.config.allowUnfreePredicate = pkg: builtins.elem (lib.getName pkg) [
             "obsidian"
           ];
         }

       c) For `nix-env`, `nix-build`, `nix-shell` or any other Nix command you can add
         { allowUnfree = true; }
       to ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix.
(use '--show-trace' to show detailed location information)

Iā€™m trying to builtins.trace in the config entry, but nothing traced (like not called at all).
I want to report this as a bug but need someone that might points out a mis-configuration.

2

Your upkg does not magically inherit the config, you need to manually configure it in its input to allow unfree.

1 Like
3

The nixpkgs.* options are configuring pkgs, but you didnā€™t pull the packages from pkgs. Try upkg = import <unstable> { config.allowUnfreePredicate = ...; };

2 Likes
4

Cool! it works now after setting both predicates.

let
  allowUnfreesP = pkg: (builtins.elem (lib.getName pkg) [
    "obsidian"
    "slack"
  ];
  upkg = import <unstable> {
    config.allowUnfreePredicate = allowUnfreesP;
  };
in rec {
    nixpkgs.config.allowUnfreePredicate = unfreelistP;
    # ...
}

Thank you @NobbZ @tejing

1 Like
5

This situation where 1. setting allowUnfree* in a module does nothing by itself and 2. setting allowUnfree* when importing Nixpkgs does not work unless you also set it in a module, is fairly recent and pretty weird actually.

I think there are a couple of GH issues about this that apparently nobody knows what to do about.

6

I have never observed the described behaviour.

Can you point me to those ā€œunresolved issuesā€ anywhere?

7
8

That is specific to HM and not reproducible in nixos modules.

They are probably related to how nixpkgs gets evaluated in HM.

9

Thereā€™s also this issue on home-manager.

10

https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/pull/2720 - makes it easier to directly used a passed in pkgs instead of home-manager creating a new one, waiting for review for a while :frowning: