/usr/local/bin/ equivalent in nixos filesystem?

bavramor · August 20, 2019, 9:25pm

I would like to install a program on myself. Of course there is no /usr/local/bin/ folder on nixos. Where would I install the program on Nixos now?

Thanks

aanderse · August 21, 2019, 1:05am

Generally you write a derivation for your program and then install it via the nix package manager. If you have never written a derivation before there are many examples you can review while reading through the nixpkgs manual. If you get stuck with anything please feel free to post questions.

bavramor · August 22, 2019, 7:54am

Thanks man, for programs i write a derivation. I understand that. But we’re dealing with something like that, for example:

sudo mv drush.phar /usr/local/bin/drush

where do I put this in nixos. To make it even more understandable, I try to set up the following:

Thx

danbst · August 22, 2019, 9:29am

Still write a derivation. There are a few simple derivation builders - check pkgs.writeScriptBin and pkgs.runCommand

Then, when your derivation is ready in a file, install it with nix-env -if ./file.nix

Or include to environment.systemPackages list in configuration.nix

aanderse · August 22, 2019, 11:23am

I thought the recommendation was to add drush per drupal project and use it from there?

peterhoeg · August 23, 2019, 1:58am

Have a look at wp-cli that’s packaged as a .phar: nixpkgs/default.nix at 5ffe9b81e0c875633ea210de765d63a5d71326de · NixOS/nixpkgs · GitHub

In case of wp-cli, writing a proper derivation allowed us to get command completion as well as set php parameters needed specifically by wp-cli.

danbst · August 23, 2019, 3:46am

@peterhoeg, still something simple as “mv” is expected here. The simplest thing I think is

drush.nix:

with import <nixpkgs> {};

runCommand "drush" {
    src = fetchurl {
        url = "https://github.com/drush-ops/drush-launcher/releases/download/0.6.0/drush.phar";
        sha256 = "0kix7wgxr1mnx77ywcc1gw45rvs9kv273k8h005lf61g1a02mwy3";
    };
    buildInputs = [ php makeWrapper ];
} ''
    mkdir -p $out/bin
    cp $src $out/bin/drush
    chmod +x $out/bin/drush
    wrapProgram $out/bin/drush --prefix PATH : ${lib.makeBinPath [ php ]}
''

The wrapper (last line) is optional.

peterhoeg · August 23, 2019, 4:04am

If it’s truly just one file (and similar to the /usr/local/bin scenario), then how about mv file $HOME/bin and be done with it?

Alternatively, the problem that OP is trying to fix (according to the drush-launcher repo):
> However, it is inconvenient to type vendor/bin/drush in order to execute Drush commands

You could also just use direnv and add the following to the project .envrc:

PATH_add ./vendor/bin

JosW · August 23, 2019, 11:19am

We do have it already?

github.com

NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/f8d260103717c6d10b95205f5bc77d493619b134/pkgs/development/tools/misc/drush/default.nix

{ stdenv, fetchurl, php, which, makeWrapper, bash, coreutils, ncurses }:

stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
  name = "drush-6.1.0";

  meta = with stdenv.lib; {
    description = "Command-line shell and Unix scripting interface for Drupal";
    homepage    = https://github.com/drush-ops/drush;
    license     = licenses.gpl2;
    maintainers = with maintainers; [ lovek323 ];
    platforms   = platforms.all;
  };

  src = fetchurl {
    url    = https://github.com/drush-ops/drush/archive/6.1.0.tar.gz;
    sha256 = "1jgnc4jjyapyn04iczvcz92ic0vq8d1w8xi55ismqyy5cxhqj6bp";
  };

  consoleTable = fetchurl {
    url    = http://download.pear.php.net/package/Console_Table-1.1.3.tgz;

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Although it may not be up to date anymore.

aanderse · August 23, 2019, 11:43am

@JosW That should probably be removed. At one point I thought about updating it, then I read upstream has the official recommendation to not package drush but instead use composer to include it with everydrupal install, IIRC.

carlosdagos · August 29, 2019, 9:29am

Whilst there’s plenty of good answers here already, I feel like the “hacky” answers are still missing, so I’ll expand on the recommendation given by @peterhoeg.

I have $HOME/.local/bin in my PATH variable, which I use whenever I want to just test a program I download from a Github release for example. The latest version of kind comes to mind, which is outdated in nixpkgs. Taking the time to contribute an update back to nixpkgs is great, but sometimes I don’t have time to be updating and testing derivations, so I’ll just add the program in $HOME/.local/bin.

Bear in mind that this approach will only work for a statically compiled program or otherwise programs that with the given interpreter can be executed with dependencies that it can find in your system. In the case of drush, I see the release is a .phar file, which as far as I understand is an archive file which should contain all the dependencies for the php program already, and according to Wikipedia, all you need is php. Looking at drush.phar, it already has a shebang that uses the env trampoline to execute with php.

Seems to me like just downloading the release into a directory that is in your PATH and making it executable should be enough, provided you already have php installed (I tested this and works okay, seemingly).

Of course later if you have the time, writing the derivation and committing it upstream to nixpkgs benefits everyone Best of luck!