Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
Recursive Nix support
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
This allows Nix builders to call Nix to build derivations, with some
limitations.

Example:

  let nixpkgs = fetchTarball channel:nixos-18.03; in

  with import <nixpkgs> {};

  runCommand "foo"
    {
      buildInputs = [ nix jq ];
      NIX_PATH = "nixpkgs=${nixpkgs}";
    }
    ''
      hello=$(nix-build -E '(import <nixpkgs> {}).hello.overrideDerivation (args: { name = "hello-3.5"; })')

      $hello/bin/hello

      mkdir -p $out/bin
      ln -s $hello/bin/hello $out/bin/hello

      nix path-info -r --json $hello | jq .
    ''

This derivation makes a recursive Nix call to build GNU Hello and
symlinks it from its $out, i.e.

  # ll ./result/bin/
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 63 Jan  1  1970 hello -> /nix/store/s0awxrs71gickhaqdwxl506hzccb30y5-hello-3.5/bin/hello

  # nix-store -qR ./result
  /nix/store/hwwqshlmazzjzj7yhrkyjydxamvvkfd3-glibc-2.26-131
  /nix/store/s0awxrs71gickhaqdwxl506hzccb30y5-hello-3.5
  /nix/store/sgmvvyw8vhfqdqb619bxkcpfn9lvd8ss-foo

This is implemented as follows:

* Before running the outer builder, Nix creates a Unix domain socket
  '.nix-socket' in the builder's temporary directory and sets
  $NIX_REMOTE to point to it. It starts a thread to process
  connections to this socket. (Thus you don't need to have nix-daemon
  running.)

* The daemon thread uses a wrapper store (RestrictedStore) to keep
  track of paths added through recursive Nix calls, to implement some
  restrictions (see below), and to do some censorship (e.g. for
  purity, queryPathInfo() won't return impure information such as
  signatures and timestamps).

* After the build finishes, the output paths are scanned for
  references to the paths added through recursive Nix calls (in
  addition to the inputs closure). Thus, in the example above, $out
  has a reference to $hello.

The main restriction on recursive Nix calls is that they cannot do
arbitrary substitutions. For example, doing

  nix-store -r /nix/store/kmwd1hq55akdb9sc7l3finr175dajlby-hello-2.10

is forbidden unless /nix/store/kmwd... is in the inputs closure or
previously built by a recursive Nix call. This is to prevent
irreproducible derivations that have hidden dependencies on
substituters or the current store contents. Building a derivation is
fine, however, and Nix will use substitutes if available. In other
words, the builder has to present proof that it knows how to build a
desired store path from scratch by constructing a derivation graph for
that path.

Probably we should also disallow instantiating/building fixed-output
derivations (specifically, those that access the network, but
currently we have no way to mark fixed-output derivations that don't
access the network). Otherwise sandboxed derivations can bypass
sandbox restrictions and access the network.

When sandboxing is enabled, we make paths appear in the sandbox of the
builder by entering the mount namespace of the builder and
bind-mounting each path. This is tricky because we do a pivot_root()
in the builder to change the root directory of its mount namespace,
and thus the host /nix/store is not visible in the mount namespace of
the builder. To get around this, just before doing pivot_root(), we
branch a second mount namespace that shares its /nix/store mountpoint
with the parent.

Recursive Nix currently doesn't work on macOS in sandboxed mode
(because we can't change the sandbox policy of a running build) and in
non-root mode (because setns() barfs).
  • Loading branch information
edolstra committed Oct 2, 2018
1 parent 9cf819f commit 1cfdfd7
Show file tree
Hide file tree
Showing 4 changed files with 492 additions and 80 deletions.
Loading

2 comments on commit 1cfdfd7

@Ericson2314
Copy link

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

🎉

@Ericson2314
Copy link

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Can we have a "tail-call" variation where the derivation builds a derivation (mini store of drv files), which is then built? This has two advantages:

  1. Often a cheap highly "volatile" (never will be cached) outer derivation would have a much more expensive inner derivation. (The outer one here that depends on all of nixpkgs is a perfect example of this.) This avoids the outer one wasting resources blocking while the inner one completes.

  2. None of sandbox dynamism is needed so macOS is automatically supported.

Please sign in to comment.