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authorEelco Dolstra <edolstra@gmail.com>2020-07-22 23:17:48 +0200
committerEelco Dolstra <edolstra@gmail.com>2020-07-23 18:26:48 +0200
commitef606760abd87c98371fbc08c1f25ad897823a2a (patch)
treea1f5c77f1302c7cf3b2b1a8945b175d8cde77c66 /doc/manual/src/package-management
parentd004715665046ff424f267deccccb78c9d5cabb7 (diff)
Pandoc conversion
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-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/package-management/basic-package-mgmt.md148
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/package-management/binary-cache-substituter.md42
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/package-management/channels.md42
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/package-management/copy-closure.md34
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/package-management/garbage-collection.md61
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/package-management/garbage-collector-roots.md16
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/package-management/package-management.md4
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/package-management/profiles.md119
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/package-management/s3-substituter.md133
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/package-management/sharing-packages.md6
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/package-management/ssh-substituter.md52
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diff --git a/doc/manual/src/package-management/basic-package-mgmt.md b/doc/manual/src/package-management/basic-package-mgmt.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..f5c550fd7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/package-management/basic-package-mgmt.md
@@ -0,0 +1,148 @@
+# Basic Package Management
+
+The main command for package management is [`nix-env`](#sec-nix-env).
+You can use it to install, upgrade, and erase packages, and to query
+what packages are installed or are available for installation.
+
+In Nix, different users can have different “views” on the set of
+installed applications. That is, there might be lots of applications
+present on the system (possibly in many different versions), but users
+can have a specific selection of those active — where “active” just
+means that it appears in a directory in the user’s PATH. Such a view on
+the set of installed applications is called a *user environment*, which
+is just a directory tree consisting of symlinks to the files of the
+active applications.
+
+Components are installed from a set of *Nix expressions* that tell Nix
+how to build those packages, including, if necessary, their
+dependencies. There is a collection of Nix expressions called the
+Nixpkgs package collection that contains packages ranging from basic
+development stuff such as GCC and Glibc, to end-user applications like
+Mozilla Firefox. (Nix is however not tied to the Nixpkgs package
+collection; you could write your own Nix expressions based on Nixpkgs,
+or completely new ones.)
+
+You can manually download the latest version of Nixpkgs from
+<http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/download.html>. However, it’s much more
+convenient to use the Nixpkgs *channel*, since it makes it easy to stay
+up to date with new versions of Nixpkgs. (Channels are described in more
+detail in [???](#sec-channels).) Nixpkgs is automatically added to your
+list of “subscribed” channels when you install Nix. If this is not the
+case for some reason, you can add it as follows:
+
+ $ nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable
+ $ nix-channel --update
+
+> **Note**
+>
+> On NixOS, you’re automatically subscribed to a NixOS channel
+> corresponding to your NixOS major release (e.g.
+> <http://nixos.org/channels/nixos-14.12>). A NixOS channel is identical
+> to the Nixpkgs channel, except that it contains only Linux binaries
+> and is updated only if a set of regression tests succeed.
+
+You can view the set of available packages in Nixpkgs:
+
+ $ nix-env -qa
+ aterm-2.2
+ bash-3.0
+ binutils-2.15
+ bison-1.875d
+ blackdown-1.4.2
+ bzip2-1.0.2
+ …
+
+The flag `-q` specifies a query operation, and `-a` means that you want
+to show the “available” (i.e., installable) packages, as opposed to the
+installed packages. If you downloaded Nixpkgs yourself, or if you
+checked it out from GitHub, then you need to pass the path to your
+Nixpkgs tree using the `-f` flag:
+
+ $ nix-env -qaf /path/to/nixpkgs
+
+where /path/to/nixpkgs is where you’ve unpacked or checked out Nixpkgs.
+
+You can select specific packages by name:
+
+ $ nix-env -qa firefox
+ firefox-34.0.5
+ firefox-with-plugins-34.0.5
+
+and using regular expressions:
+
+ $ nix-env -qa 'firefox.*'
+
+It is also possible to see the *status* of available packages, i.e.,
+whether they are installed into the user environment and/or present in
+the system:
+
+ $ nix-env -qas
+ …
+ -PS bash-3.0
+ --S binutils-2.15
+ IPS bison-1.875d
+ …
+
+The first character (`I`) indicates whether the package is installed in
+your current user environment. The second (`P`) indicates whether it is
+present on your system (in which case installing it into your user
+environment would be a very quick operation). The last one (`S`)
+indicates whether there is a so-called *substitute* for the package,
+which is Nix’s mechanism for doing binary deployment. It just means that
+Nix knows that it can fetch a pre-built package from somewhere
+(typically a network server) instead of building it locally.
+
+You can install a package using `nix-env -i`. For instance,
+
+ $ nix-env -i subversion
+
+will install the package called `subversion` (which is, of course, the
+[Subversion version management system](http://subversion.tigris.org/)).
+
+> **Note**
+>
+> When you ask Nix to install a package, it will first try to get it in
+> pre-compiled form from a *binary cache*. By default, Nix will use the
+> binary cache <https://cache.nixos.org>; it contains binaries for most
+> packages in Nixpkgs. Only if no binary is available in the binary
+> cache, Nix will build the package from source. So if `nix-env
+> -i subversion` results in Nix building stuff from source, then either
+> the package is not built for your platform by the Nixpkgs build
+> servers, or your version of Nixpkgs is too old or too new. For
+> instance, if you have a very recent checkout of Nixpkgs, then the
+> Nixpkgs build servers may not have had a chance to build everything
+> and upload the resulting binaries to <https://cache.nixos.org>. The
+> Nixpkgs channel is only updated after all binaries have been uploaded
+> to the cache, so if you stick to the Nixpkgs channel (rather than
+> using a Git checkout of the Nixpkgs tree), you will get binaries for
+> most packages.
+
+Naturally, packages can also be uninstalled:
+
+ $ nix-env -e subversion
+
+Upgrading to a new version is just as easy. If you have a new release of
+Nix Packages, you can do:
+
+ $ nix-env -u subversion
+
+This will *only* upgrade Subversion if there is a “newer” version in the
+new set of Nix expressions, as defined by some pretty arbitrary rules
+regarding ordering of version numbers (which generally do what you’d
+expect of them). To just unconditionally replace Subversion with
+whatever version is in the Nix expressions, use `-i` instead of `-u`;
+`-i` will remove whatever version is already installed.
+
+You can also upgrade all packages for which there are newer versions:
+
+ $ nix-env -u
+
+Sometimes it’s useful to be able to ask what `nix-env` would do, without
+actually doing it. For instance, to find out what packages would be
+upgraded by `nix-env -u`, you can do
+
+ $ nix-env -u --dry-run
+ (dry run; not doing anything)
+ upgrading `libxslt-1.1.0' to `libxslt-1.1.10'
+ upgrading `graphviz-1.10' to `graphviz-1.12'
+ upgrading `coreutils-5.0' to `coreutils-5.2.1'
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/package-management/binary-cache-substituter.md b/doc/manual/src/package-management/binary-cache-substituter.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..44f0da238
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/package-management/binary-cache-substituter.md
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+# Serving a Nix store via HTTP
+
+You can easily share the Nix store of a machine via HTTP. This allows
+other machines to fetch store paths from that machine to speed up
+installations. It uses the same *binary cache* mechanism that Nix
+usually uses to fetch pre-built binaries from <https://cache.nixos.org>.
+
+The daemon that handles binary cache requests via HTTP, `nix-serve`, is
+not part of the Nix distribution, but you can install it from Nixpkgs:
+
+ $ nix-env -i nix-serve
+
+You can then start the server, listening for HTTP connections on
+whatever port you like:
+
+ $ nix-serve -p 8080
+
+To check whether it works, try the following on the client:
+
+ $ curl http://avalon:8080/nix-cache-info
+
+which should print something like:
+
+ StoreDir: /nix/store
+ WantMassQuery: 1
+ Priority: 30
+
+On the client side, you can tell Nix to use your binary cache using
+`--option extra-binary-caches`, e.g.:
+
+ $ nix-env -i firefox --option extra-binary-caches http://avalon:8080/
+
+The option `extra-binary-caches` tells Nix to use this binary cache in
+addition to your default caches, such as <https://cache.nixos.org>.
+Thus, for any path in the closure of Firefox, Nix will first check if
+the path is available on the server `avalon` or another binary caches.
+If not, it will fall back to building from source.
+
+You can also tell Nix to always use your binary cache by adding a line
+to the `nix.conf` configuration file like this:
+
+ binary-caches = http://avalon:8080/ https://cache.nixos.org/
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/package-management/channels.md b/doc/manual/src/package-management/channels.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..8a3e92d70
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/package-management/channels.md
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+# Channels
+
+If you want to stay up to date with a set of packages, it’s not very
+convenient to manually download the latest set of Nix expressions for
+those packages and upgrade using `nix-env`. Fortunately, there’s a
+better way: *Nix channels*.
+
+A Nix channel is just a URL that points to a place that contains a set
+of Nix expressions and a manifest. Using the command
+[`nix-channel`](#sec-nix-channel) you can automatically stay up to date
+with whatever is available at that URL.
+
+To see the list of official NixOS channels, visit
+<https://nixos.org/channels>.
+
+You can “subscribe” to a channel using `nix-channel --add`, e.g.,
+
+ $ nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable
+
+subscribes you to a channel that always contains that latest version of
+the Nix Packages collection. (Subscribing really just means that the URL
+is added to the file `~/.nix-channels`, where it is read by subsequent
+calls to `nix-channel
+--update`.) You can “unsubscribe” using `nix-channel
+--remove`:
+
+ $ nix-channel --remove nixpkgs
+
+To obtain the latest Nix expressions available in a channel, do
+
+ $ nix-channel --update
+
+This downloads and unpacks the Nix expressions in every channel
+(downloaded from `url/nixexprs.tar.bz2`). It also makes the union of
+each channel’s Nix expressions available by default to `nix-env`
+operations (via the symlink `~/.nix-defexpr/channels`). Consequently,
+you can then say
+
+ $ nix-env -u
+
+to upgrade all packages in your profile to the latest versions available
+in the subscribed channels.
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/package-management/copy-closure.md b/doc/manual/src/package-management/copy-closure.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6573862c0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/package-management/copy-closure.md
@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+# Copying Closures Via SSH
+
+The command `nix-copy-closure` copies a Nix store path along with all
+its dependencies to or from another machine via the SSH protocol. It
+doesn’t copy store paths that are already present on the target machine.
+For example, the following command copies Firefox with all its
+dependencies:
+
+ $ nix-copy-closure --to alice@itchy.example.org $(type -p firefox)
+
+See [???](#sec-nix-copy-closure) for details.
+
+With `nix-store
+--export` and `nix-store --import` you can write the closure of a store
+path (that is, the path and all its dependencies) to a file, and then
+unpack that file into another Nix store. For example,
+
+ $ nix-store --export $(nix-store -qR $(type -p firefox)) > firefox.closure
+
+writes the closure of Firefox to a file. You can then copy this file to
+another machine and install the closure:
+
+ $ nix-store --import < firefox.closure
+
+Any store paths in the closure that are already present in the target
+store are ignored. It is also possible to pipe the export into another
+command, e.g. to copy and install a closure directly to/on another
+machine:
+
+ $ nix-store --export $(nix-store -qR $(type -p firefox)) | bzip2 | \
+ ssh alice@itchy.example.org "bunzip2 | nix-store --import"
+
+However, `nix-copy-closure` is generally more efficient because it only
+copies paths that are not already present in the target Nix store.
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/package-management/garbage-collection.md b/doc/manual/src/package-management/garbage-collection.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..4c8799dfe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/package-management/garbage-collection.md
@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+# Garbage Collection
+
+`nix-env` operations such as upgrades (`-u`) and uninstall (`-e`) never
+actually delete packages from the system. All they do (as shown above)
+is to create a new user environment that no longer contains symlinks to
+the “deleted” packages.
+
+Of course, since disk space is not infinite, unused packages should be
+removed at some point. You can do this by running the Nix garbage
+collector. It will remove from the Nix store any package not used
+(directly or indirectly) by any generation of any profile.
+
+Note however that as long as old generations reference a package, it
+will not be deleted. After all, we wouldn’t be able to do a rollback
+otherwise. So in order for garbage collection to be effective, you
+should also delete (some) old generations. Of course, this should only
+be done if you are certain that you will not need to roll back.
+
+To delete all old (non-current) generations of your current profile:
+
+ $ nix-env --delete-generations old
+
+Instead of `old` you can also specify a list of generations, e.g.,
+
+ $ nix-env --delete-generations 10 11 14
+
+To delete all generations older than a specified number of days (except
+the current generation), use the `d` suffix. For example,
+
+ $ nix-env --delete-generations 14d
+
+deletes all generations older than two weeks.
+
+After removing appropriate old generations you can run the garbage
+collector as follows:
+
+ $ nix-store --gc
+
+The behaviour of the gargage collector is affected by the
+`keep-derivations` (default: true) and `keep-outputs` (default: false)
+options in the Nix configuration file. The defaults will ensure that all
+derivations that are build-time dependencies of garbage collector roots
+will be kept and that all output paths that are runtime dependencies
+will be kept as well. All other derivations or paths will be collected.
+(This is usually what you want, but while you are developing it may make
+sense to keep outputs to ensure that rebuild times are quick.) If you
+are feeling uncertain, you can also first view what files would be
+deleted:
+
+ $ nix-store --gc --print-dead
+
+Likewise, the option `--print-live` will show the paths that *won’t* be
+deleted.
+
+There is also a convenient little utility `nix-collect-garbage`, which
+when invoked with the `-d` (`--delete-old`) switch deletes all old
+generations of all profiles in `/nix/var/nix/profiles`. So
+
+ $ nix-collect-garbage -d
+
+is a quick and easy way to clean up your system.
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/package-management/garbage-collector-roots.md b/doc/manual/src/package-management/garbage-collector-roots.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6f4d48e80
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/package-management/garbage-collector-roots.md
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+# Garbage Collector Roots
+
+The roots of the garbage collector are all store paths to which there
+are symlinks in the directory `prefix/nix/var/nix/gcroots`. For
+instance, the following command makes the path
+`/nix/store/d718ef...-foo` a root of the collector:
+
+ $ ln -s /nix/store/d718ef...-foo /nix/var/nix/gcroots/bar
+
+That is, after this command, the garbage collector will not remove
+`/nix/store/d718ef...-foo` or any of its dependencies.
+
+Subdirectories of `prefix/nix/var/nix/gcroots` are also searched for
+symlinks. Symlinks to non-store paths are followed and searched for
+roots, but symlinks to non-store paths *inside* the paths reached in
+that way are not followed to prevent infinite recursion.
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/package-management/package-management.md b/doc/manual/src/package-management/package-management.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..a2d078c16
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/package-management/package-management.md
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+This chapter discusses how to do package management with Nix, i.e., how
+to obtain, install, upgrade, and erase packages. This is the “user’s”
+perspective of the Nix system — people who want to *create* packages
+should consult [???](#chap-writing-nix-expressions).
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/package-management/profiles.md b/doc/manual/src/package-management/profiles.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..c46adf538
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/package-management/profiles.md
@@ -0,0 +1,119 @@
+# Profiles
+
+Profiles and user environments are Nix’s mechanism for implementing the
+ability to allow different users to have different configurations, and
+to do atomic upgrades and rollbacks. To understand how they work, it’s
+useful to know a bit about how Nix works. In Nix, packages are stored in
+unique locations in the *Nix store* (typically, `/nix/store`). For
+instance, a particular version of the Subversion package might be stored
+in a directory
+`/nix/store/dpmvp969yhdqs7lm2r1a3gng7pyq6vy4-subversion-1.1.3/`, while
+another version might be stored in
+`/nix/store/5mq2jcn36ldlmh93yj1n8s9c95pj7c5s-subversion-1.1.2`. The long
+strings prefixed to the directory names are cryptographic hashes\[1\] of
+*all* inputs involved in building the package — sources, dependencies,
+compiler flags, and so on. So if two packages differ in any way, they
+end up in different locations in the file system, so they don’t
+interfere with each other. [figure\_title](#fig-user-environments) shows
+a part of a typical Nix store.
+
+![User environments](../figures/user-environments.png)
+
+Of course, you wouldn’t want to type
+
+ $ /nix/store/dpmvp969yhdq...-subversion-1.1.3/bin/svn
+
+every time you want to run Subversion. Of course we could set up the
+PATH environment variable to include the `bin` directory of every
+package we want to use, but this is not very convenient since changing
+PATH doesn’t take effect for already existing processes. The solution
+Nix uses is to create directory trees of symlinks to *activated*
+packages. These are called *user environments* and they are packages
+themselves (though automatically generated by `nix-env`), so they too
+reside in the Nix store. For instance, in
+[figure\_title](#fig-user-environments) the user environment
+`/nix/store/0c1p5z4kda11...-user-env` contains a symlink to just
+Subversion 1.1.2 (arrows in the figure indicate symlinks). This would be
+what we would obtain if we had done
+
+ $ nix-env -i subversion
+
+on a set of Nix expressions that contained Subversion 1.1.2.
+
+This doesn’t in itself solve the problem, of course; you wouldn’t want
+to type `/nix/store/0c1p5z4kda11...-user-env/bin/svn` either. That’s why
+there are symlinks outside of the store that point to the user
+environments in the store; for instance, the symlinks `default-42-link`
+and `default-43-link` in the example. These are called *generations*
+since every time you perform a `nix-env` operation, a new user
+environment is generated based on the current one. For instance,
+generation 43 was created from generation 42 when we did
+
+ $ nix-env -i subversion firefox
+
+on a set of Nix expressions that contained Firefox and a new version of
+Subversion.
+
+Generations are grouped together into *profiles* so that different users
+don’t interfere with each other if they don’t want to. For example:
+
+ $ ls -l /nix/var/nix/profiles/
+ ...
+ lrwxrwxrwx 1 eelco ... default-42-link -> /nix/store/0c1p5z4kda11...-user-env
+ lrwxrwxrwx 1 eelco ... default-43-link -> /nix/store/3aw2pdyx2jfc...-user-env
+ lrwxrwxrwx 1 eelco ... default -> default-43-link
+
+This shows a profile called `default`. The file `default` itself is
+actually a symlink that points to the current generation. When we do a
+`nix-env` operation, a new user environment and generation link are
+created based on the current one, and finally the `default` symlink is
+made to point at the new generation. This last step is atomic on Unix,
+which explains how we can do atomic upgrades. (Note that the
+building/installing of new packages doesn’t interfere in any way with
+old packages, since they are stored in different locations in the Nix
+store.)
+
+If you find that you want to undo a `nix-env` operation, you can just do
+
+ $ nix-env --rollback
+
+which will just make the current generation link point at the previous
+link. E.g., `default` would be made to point at `default-42-link`. You
+can also switch to a specific generation:
+
+ $ nix-env --switch-generation 43
+
+which in this example would roll forward to generation 43 again. You can
+also see all available generations:
+
+ $ nix-env --list-generations
+
+You generally wouldn’t have `/nix/var/nix/profiles/some-profile/bin` in
+your PATH. Rather, there is a symlink `~/.nix-profile` that points to
+your current profile. This means that you should put
+`~/.nix-profile/bin` in your PATH (and indeed, that’s what the
+initialisation script `/nix/etc/profile.d/nix.sh` does). This makes it
+easier to switch to a different profile. You can do that using the
+command `nix-env --switch-profile`:
+
+ $ nix-env --switch-profile /nix/var/nix/profiles/my-profile
+
+ $ nix-env --switch-profile /nix/var/nix/profiles/default
+
+These commands switch to the `my-profile` and default profile,
+respectively. If the profile doesn’t exist, it will be created
+automatically. You should be careful about storing a profile in another
+location than the `profiles` directory, since otherwise it might not be
+used as a root of the garbage collector (see
+[???](#sec-garbage-collection)).
+
+All `nix-env` operations work on the profile pointed to by
+`~/.nix-profile`, but you can override this using the `--profile` option
+(abbreviation `-p`):
+
+ $ nix-env -p /nix/var/nix/profiles/other-profile -i subversion
+
+This will *not* change the `~/.nix-profile` symlink.
+
+1. 160-bit truncations of SHA-256 hashes encoded in a base-32 notation,
+ to be precise.
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/package-management/s3-substituter.md b/doc/manual/src/package-management/s3-substituter.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..4740b8b1c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/package-management/s3-substituter.md
@@ -0,0 +1,133 @@
+# Serving a Nix store via AWS S3 or S3-compatible Service
+
+Nix has built-in support for storing and fetching store paths from
+Amazon S3 and S3 compatible services. This uses the same *binary* cache
+mechanism that Nix usually uses to fetch prebuilt binaries from
+[cache.nixos.org](cache.nixos.org).
+
+The following options can be specified as URL parameters to the S3 URL:
+
+ - `profile`
+ The name of the AWS configuration profile to use. By default Nix
+ will use the `default` profile.
+
+ - `region`
+ The region of the S3 bucket. `us–east-1` by default.
+
+ If your bucket is not in `us–east-1`, you should always explicitly
+ specify the region parameter.
+
+ - `endpoint`
+ The URL to your S3-compatible service, for when not using Amazon S3.
+ Do not specify this value if you're using Amazon S3.
+
+ > **Note**
+ >
+ > This endpoint must support HTTPS and will use path-based
+ > addressing instead of virtual host based addressing.
+
+ - `scheme`
+ The scheme used for S3 requests, `https` (default) or `http`. This
+ option allows you to disable HTTPS for binary caches which don't
+ support it.
+
+ > **Note**
+ >
+ > HTTPS should be used if the cache might contain sensitive
+ > information.
+
+In this example we will use the bucket named `example-nix-cache`.
+
+## Anonymous Reads to your S3-compatible binary cache
+
+If your binary cache is publicly accessible and does not require
+authentication, the simplest and easiest way to use Nix with your S3
+compatible binary cache is to use the HTTP URL for that cache.
+
+For AWS S3 the binary cache URL for example bucket will be exactly
+<https://example-nix-cache.s3.amazonaws.com> or
+<s3://example-nix-cache>. For S3 compatible binary caches, consult that
+cache's documentation.
+
+Your bucket will need the following bucket policy:
+
+ {
+ "Id": "DirectReads",
+ "Version": "2012-10-17",
+ "Statement": [
+ {
+ "Sid": "AllowDirectReads",
+ "Action": [
+ "s3:GetObject",
+ "s3:GetBucketLocation"
+ ],
+ "Effect": "Allow",
+ "Resource": [
+ "arn:aws:s3:::example-nix-cache",
+ "arn:aws:s3:::example-nix-cache/*"
+ ],
+ "Principal": "*"
+ }
+ ]
+ }
+
+## Authenticated Reads to your S3 binary cache
+
+For AWS S3 the binary cache URL for example bucket will be exactly
+<s3://example-nix-cache>.
+
+Nix will use the [default credential provider
+chain](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-cpp/v1/developer-guide/credentials.html)
+for authenticating requests to Amazon S3.
+
+Nix supports authenticated reads from Amazon S3 and S3 compatible binary
+caches.
+
+Your bucket will need a bucket policy allowing the desired users to
+perform the `s3:GetObject` and `s3:GetBucketLocation` action on all
+objects in the bucket. The anonymous policy in [Anonymous Reads to your
+S3-compatible binary cache](#ssec-s3-substituter-anonymous-reads) can be
+updated to have a restricted `Principal` to support this.
+
+## Authenticated Writes to your S3-compatible binary cache
+
+Nix support fully supports writing to Amazon S3 and S3 compatible
+buckets. The binary cache URL for our example bucket will be
+<s3://example-nix-cache>.
+
+Nix will use the [default credential provider
+chain](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-cpp/v1/developer-guide/credentials.html)
+for authenticating requests to Amazon S3.
+
+Your account will need the following IAM policy to upload to the cache:
+
+ {
+ "Version": "2012-10-17",
+ "Statement": [
+ {
+ "Sid": "UploadToCache",
+ "Effect": "Allow",
+ "Action": [
+ "s3:AbortMultipartUpload",
+ "s3:GetBucketLocation",
+ "s3:GetObject",
+ "s3:ListBucket",
+ "s3:ListBucketMultipartUploads",
+ "s3:ListMultipartUploadParts",
+ "s3:PutObject"
+ ],
+ "Resource": [
+ "arn:aws:s3:::example-nix-cache",
+ "arn:aws:s3:::example-nix-cache/*"
+ ]
+ }
+ ]
+ }
+
+`nix copy --to
+'s3://example-nix-cache?profile=cache-upload&region=eu-west-2'
+nixpkgs.hello`
+
+`nix copy --to
+'s3://example-nix-cache?profile=cache-upload&scheme=https&endpoint=minio.example.com'
+nixpkgs.hello`
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/package-management/sharing-packages.md b/doc/manual/src/package-management/sharing-packages.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..846ca6934
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/package-management/sharing-packages.md
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+# Sharing Packages Between Machines
+
+Sometimes you want to copy a package from one machine to another. Or,
+you want to install some packages and you know that another machine
+already has some or all of those packages or their dependencies. In that
+case there are mechanisms to quickly copy packages between machines.
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/package-management/ssh-substituter.md b/doc/manual/src/package-management/ssh-substituter.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..482844c7c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/package-management/ssh-substituter.md
@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+# Serving a Nix store via SSH
+
+You can tell Nix to automatically fetch needed binaries from a remote
+Nix store via SSH. For example, the following installs Firefox,
+automatically fetching any store paths in Firefox’s closure if they are
+available on the server `avalon`:
+
+ $ nix-env -i firefox --substituters ssh://alice@avalon
+
+This works similar to the binary cache substituter that Nix usually
+uses, only using SSH instead of HTTP: if a store path `P` is needed, Nix
+will first check if it’s available in the Nix store on `avalon`. If not,
+it will fall back to using the binary cache substituter, and then to
+building from source.
+
+> **Note**
+>
+> The SSH substituter currently does not allow you to enter an SSH
+> passphrase interactively. Therefore, you should use `ssh-add` to load
+> the decrypted private key into `ssh-agent`.
+
+You can also copy the closure of some store path, without installing it
+into your profile, e.g.
+
+ $ nix-store -r /nix/store/m85bxg…-firefox-34.0.5 --substituters ssh://alice@avalon
+
+This is essentially equivalent to doing
+
+ $ nix-copy-closure --from alice@avalon /nix/store/m85bxg…-firefox-34.0.5
+
+You can use SSH’s *forced command* feature to set up a restricted user
+account for SSH substituter access, allowing read-only access to the
+local Nix store, but nothing more. For example, add the following lines
+to `sshd_config` to restrict the user `nix-ssh`:
+
+ Match User nix-ssh
+ AllowAgentForwarding no
+ AllowTcpForwarding no
+ PermitTTY no
+ PermitTunnel no
+ X11Forwarding no
+ ForceCommand nix-store --serve
+ Match All
+
+On NixOS, you can accomplish the same by adding the following to your
+`configuration.nix`:
+
+ nix.sshServe.enable = true;
+ nix.sshServe.keys = [ "ssh-dss AAAAB3NzaC1k... bob@example.org" ];
+
+where the latter line lists the public keys of users that are allowed to
+connect.