Knowledge Base

nix-index

2 min read

Nix Index

A files database for nixpkgs

nix-index is a tool to quickly locate the package providing a certain file in nixpkgs. It indexes built derivations found in binary caches.

$ nix-locate 'bin/hello'
hello.out                                        29,488 x /nix/store/bdjyhh70npndlq3rzmggh4f2dzdsj4xy-hello-2.10/bin/hello
linuxPackages_4_4.dpdk.examples               2,022,224 x /nix/store/jlnk3d38zsk0bp02rp9skpqk4vjfijnn-dpdk-16.07.2-4.4.52-examples/bin/helloworld
linuxPackages.dpdk.examples                   2,022,224 x /nix/store/rzx4k0pb58gd1dr9kzwam3vk9r8bfyv1-dpdk-16.07.2-4.9.13-examples/bin/helloworld
linuxPackages_4_10.dpdk.examples              2,022,224 x /nix/store/wya1b0910qidfc9v3i6r9rnbnc9ykkwq-dpdk-16.07.2-4.10.1-examples/bin/helloworld
linuxPackages_grsec_nixos.dpdk.examples       2,022,224 x /nix/store/2wqv94290pa38aclld7sc548a7hnz35k-dpdk-16.07.2-4.9.13-examples/bin/helloworld
camlistore.out                                7,938,952 x /nix/store/xn5ivjdyslxldhm5cb4x0lfz48zf21rl-camlistore-0.9/bin/hello

Usage

First, you need to generate an index by running nix-index (it takes around 5 minutes) . Then, you can use nix-locate pattern. For more information, see nix-locate --help and nix-index --help.

Use pre-generated database

nix-index-database provides pre-generated databases if you don’t want to generate a database locally. It also comes with nixos/home-manager modules to use those databases.

Usage as a command-not-found replacement

Nix-index provides a “command-not-found” script that can print for you the attribute path of unfound commands in your shell. You can either source ${pkgs.nix-index}/etc/command-not-found.sh in your own shell init files (works for ZSH and Bash for as far as we know) or you can use the following in home-manager / /etc/nixos/configuration.nix:

    programs.command-not-found.enable = false;
    # for home-manager, use programs.bash.initExtra instead
    programs.bash.interactiveShellInit = ''
      source ${pkgs.nix-index}/etc/profile.d/command-not-found.sh
    '';

Example output:

$ blender
The program 'blender' is currently not installed. You can install it
by typing:
  nix-env -iA nixpkgs.blender.out
 
Or run it once with:
  nix-shell -p blender.out --run ...

A home-manager module is now available to integrate nix-index with bash, zsh, and fish using this script.

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