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authorEelco Dolstra <edolstra@gmail.com>2023-03-21 14:03:05 +0100
committerEelco Dolstra <edolstra@gmail.com>2023-03-21 14:03:40 +0100
commit9eb53bbf17037691e1278c71517d74d0962aa43f (patch)
tree33fdd4666bbff78bc801ff241ac67877a952e993 /src/libstore/local-store.md
parent7704118d2816c2f7939db6771cd4665d5a68596d (diff)
Support per-store Markdown documentation
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+R"(
+
+**Store URL format**: `local`, *root*
+
+This store type accesses a Nix store in the local filesystem directly
+(i.e. not via the Nix daemon). *root* is an absolute path that denotes
+the "root" of the filesystem; other directories such as the Nix store
+directory (as denoted by the `store` setting) are interpreted relative
+to *root*. The store pseudo-URL `local` denotes a store that uses `/`
+as its root directory.
+
+A store that uses a *root* other than `/` is called a *chroot
+store*. With such stores, the store directory is "logically" still
+`/nix/store`, so programs stored in them can only be built and
+executed by `chroot`-ing into *root*. Chroot stores only support
+building and running on Linux when mount and user namespaces are
+enabled.
+
+For example, the following uses `/tmp/root` as the chroot environment
+to build or download `nixpkgs#hello` and then execute it:
+
+```console
+# nix run --store /tmp/root nixpkgs#hello
+Hello, world!
+```
+
+Here, the "physical" store location is `/tmp/root/nix/store`, and
+Nix's store metadata is in `/tmp/root/nix/var/nix/db`.
+
+It is also possible, but not recommended, to change the "logical"
+location of the Nix store from its default of `/nix/store`. This makes
+it impossible to use default substituters such as
+`https://cache.nixos.org/`, and thus you may have to build everything
+locally. Here is an example:
+
+```console
+# nix build --store 'local?store=/tmp/my-nix/store&state=/tmp/my-nix/state&log=/tmp/my-nix/log' nixpkgs#hello
+```
+
+)"