From a2b7baa42f9e5af5648d1b838aff72f1ad03974c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Dave Nicponski Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2022 17:25:26 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] Set `HOME` var to `root`'s home when running `nix-store` as `root` A [recent-ish change](https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/6676) logs a warning when a potentially counterintuitive situation happens. This now causes the multi-user installer to [emit a warning](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/189043) when it's doing the "seed the Nix database" step via a low-level `nix-store --load-db` invocation. `nix-store` functionality implementations don't actually use profiles or channels or homedir as far as i can tell. So why are we hitting this code at all? Well, the current command approach for functionality here builds a [fat `nix` binary](https://github.com/NixOS/nix/blob/master/src/nix/local.mk#L23-L26) which has _all_ the functionality of previous individual binaries (nix-env, nix-store, etc) bundled in, then [uses the invocation name](https://github.com/NixOS/nix/blob/master/src/nix/main.cc#L274-L277) to select the set of commands to expose. `nix` itself has this behavior, even when just trying to parse the (sub)command and arguments: ``` dave @ davembp2 $ nix error: no subcommand specified Try 'nix --help' for more information. dave @ davembp2 $ sudo nix warning: $HOME ('/Users/dave') is not owned by you, falling back to the one defined in the 'passwd' file error: no subcommand specified Try 'nix --help' for more information. dave @ davembp2 $ HOME=~root sudo nix error: no subcommand specified Try 'nix --help' for more information. ``` This behavior can also be seen pretty easily with an arbitrary `nix-store` invocation: ``` dave @ davembp2 $ nix-store --realize dave @ davembp2 $ sudo nix-store --realize # what installer is doing now warning: $HOME ('/Users/dave') is not owned by you, falling back to the one defined in the 'passwd' file dave @ davembp2 $ sudo HOME=~root nix-store --realize # what this PR effectively does dave @ davembp2 $ ``` --- scripts/install-multi-user.sh | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/scripts/install-multi-user.sh b/scripts/install-multi-user.sh index 01dbf0c0ede..105b84af6eb 100644 --- a/scripts/install-multi-user.sh +++ b/scripts/install-multi-user.sh @@ -810,7 +810,7 @@ EOF fi _sudo "to load data for the first time in to the Nix Database" \ - "$NIX_INSTALLED_NIX/bin/nix-store" --load-db < ./.reginfo + HOME="$ROOT_HOME" "$NIX_INSTALLED_NIX/bin/nix-store" --load-db < ./.reginfo echo " Just finished getting the nix database ready." )