Use nix-shell inside of a nixos-container

Help
1

I’m using a nixos nspawn container for development, and would like to be able to use nix-shell (e.g. nix-shell -p inetutils) while logged in to this container. When I do so, I get the error error: file 'nixpkgs' was not found in the Nix search path as /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root is empty. I’ve tried adding channels with nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable and nix-channel --update (with and without sudo), and though they don’t fail, it doesn’t work.

Is there a way to make this work inside a container? I could try mounting the nix profile from the host though I doubt that would work and it sounds like a horrible idea.

2

Sorry, I lost you there. What does “for development” mean, here, please?

3

What’re the outputs of

  • printenv NIX_PATH
  • nix-channel --list

as both root and non-root?

4

Guess I tried to hide behind “development” to avoid an explanation, sorry :sweat_smile:. I use a nix container as a hacking box, and it’s pretty common that I need a piece of software that I haven’t defined in its config, and resetting the entire container to update the installed packages isn’t feasible.

5

The container is defined as part of my nix system config, this is right after a nixos-rebuild. Potentially relevant container config is system.autoUpgrade.channel = "https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable";

col0r@hacking:~/ > printenv NIX_PATH
/home/col0r/.nix-defexpr/channels:nixpkgs=/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos:nixos-config=/etc/nixos/configuration.nix:/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels
col0r@hacking:~/ > nix-channel --list
nixpkgs https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable

And root:

[root@hacking:/home/col0r]# printenv NIX_PATH
nixpkgs=/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos:nixos-config=/etc/nixos/configuration.nix:/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels
[root@hacking:/home/col0r]# nix-channel --list
6

I think I discovered the issue. I had mounted the home directory of the container for easy file transfer, and I think that might have prevented the .nix-defexpr directory from being created right. I rebuilt with no config changes and it’s working just fine now using the local channel. Guess this ended up being a rubber duck problem, thanks for pushing me in the right direction!