5 files changed, 35 insertions, 20 deletions

diff --git a/src/libmain/common-args.cc b/src/libmain/common-args.cc
index 9e1d7cee6..0486932b2 100644
--- a/src/libmain/common-args.cc
+++ b/src/libmain/common-args.cc
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 #include "common-args.hh"
 #include "globals.hh"
+#include "download.hh"
 
 namespace nix {
 
@@ -44,6 +45,16 @@ MixCommonArgs::MixCommonArgs(const string & programName)
             settings.set("max-jobs", s);
         });
 
+    mkFlag()
+        .longName("no-net")
+        .description("disable substituters and consider all previously downloaded files up-to-date")
+        .handler([]() {
+            settings.useSubstitutes = false;
+            settings.tarballTtl = std::numeric_limits<unsigned int>::max();
+            downloadSettings.tries = 0;
+            downloadSettings.connectTimeout = 1;
+        });
+
     std::string cat = "config";
     globalConfig.convertToArgs(*this, cat);
 
diff --git a/src/libstore/download.cc b/src/libstore/download.cc
index 43d231e30..342a8aa21 100644
--- a/src/libstore/download.cc
+++ b/src/libstore/download.cc
@@ -29,23 +29,7 @@ using namespace std::string_literals;
 
 namespace nix {
 
-struct DownloadSettings : Config
-{
-    Setting<bool> enableHttp2{this, true, "http2",
-        "Whether to enable HTTP/2 support."};
-
-    Setting<std::string> userAgentSuffix{this, "", "user-agent-suffix",
-        "String appended to the user agent in HTTP requests."};
-
-    Setting<size_t> httpConnections{this, 25, "http-connections",
-        "Number of parallel HTTP connections.",
-        {"binary-caches-parallel-connections"}};
-
-    Setting<unsigned long> connectTimeout{this, 0, "connect-timeout",
-        "Timeout for connecting to servers during downloads. 0 means use curl's builtin default."};
-};
-
-static DownloadSettings downloadSettings;
+DownloadSettings downloadSettings;
 
 static GlobalConfig::Register r1(&downloadSettings);
 
diff --git a/src/libstore/download.hh b/src/libstore/download.hh
index 752f91857..dae082ab9 100644
--- a/src/libstore/download.hh
+++ b/src/libstore/download.hh
@@ -9,13 +9,34 @@
 
 namespace nix {
 
+struct DownloadSettings : Config
+{
+    Setting<bool> enableHttp2{this, true, "http2",
+        "Whether to enable HTTP/2 support."};
+
+    Setting<std::string> userAgentSuffix{this, "", "user-agent-suffix",
+        "String appended to the user agent in HTTP requests."};
+
+    Setting<size_t> httpConnections{this, 25, "http-connections",
+        "Number of parallel HTTP connections.",
+        {"binary-caches-parallel-connections"}};
+
+    Setting<unsigned long> connectTimeout{this, 0, "connect-timeout",
+        "Timeout for connecting to servers during downloads. 0 means use curl's builtin default."};
+
+    Setting<unsigned int> tries{this, 5, "download-attempts",
+        "How often Nix will attempt to download a file before giving up."};
+};
+
+extern DownloadSettings downloadSettings;
+
 struct DownloadRequest
 {
     std::string uri;
     std::string expectedETag;
     bool verifyTLS = true;
     bool head = false;
-    size_t tries = 5;
+    size_t tries = downloadSettings.tries;
     unsigned int baseRetryTimeMs = 250;
     ActivityId parentAct;
     bool decompress = true;
diff --git a/src/libstore/globals.hh b/src/libstore/globals.hh
index 53efc6a90..0af8215d1 100644
--- a/src/libstore/globals.hh
+++ b/src/libstore/globals.hh
@@ -255,7 +255,7 @@ public:
         "Secret keys with which to sign local builds."};
 
     Setting<unsigned int> tarballTtl{this, 60 * 60, "tarball-ttl",
-        "How soon to expire files fetched by builtins.fetchTarball and builtins.fetchurl."};
+        "How long downloaded files are considered up-to-date."};
 
     Setting<bool> requireSigs{this, true, "require-sigs",
         "Whether to check that any non-content-addressed path added to the "
diff --git a/src/libstore/http-binary-cache-store.cc b/src/libstore/http-binary-cache-store.cc
index 5133dba57..5633b4355 100644
--- a/src/libstore/http-binary-cache-store.cc
+++ b/src/libstore/http-binary-cache-store.cc
@@ -85,7 +85,6 @@ protected:
         try {
             DownloadRequest request(cacheUri + "/" + path);
             request.head = true;
-            request.tries = 5;
             getDownloader()->download(request);
             return true;
         } catch (DownloadError & e) {