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+# Common Environment Variables
+
+Most Nix commands interpret the following environment variables:
+
+ - `IN_NIX_SHELL`
+ Indicator that tells if the current environment was set up by
+ `nix-shell`. Since Nix 2.0 the values are `"pure"` and `"impure"`
+
+ - `NIX_PATH`
+ A colon-separated list of directories used to look up Nix
+ expressions enclosed in angle brackets (i.e., `<path>`). For
+ instance, the value
+
+ /home/eelco/Dev:/etc/nixos
+
+ will cause Nix to look for paths relative to `/home/eelco/Dev` and
+ `/etc/nixos`, in this order. It is also possible to match paths
+ against a prefix. For example, the value
+
+ nixpkgs=/home/eelco/Dev/nixpkgs-branch:/etc/nixos
+
+ will cause Nix to search for `<nixpkgs/path>` in
+ `/home/eelco/Dev/nixpkgs-branch/path` and `/etc/nixos/nixpkgs/path`.
+
+ If a path in the Nix search path starts with `http://` or
+ `https://`, it is interpreted as the URL of a tarball that will be
+ downloaded and unpacked to a temporary location. The tarball must
+ consist of a single top-level directory. For example, setting
+ `NIX_PATH` to
+
+ nixpkgs=https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/nixos-15.09.tar.gz
+
+ tells Nix to download the latest revision in the Nixpkgs/NixOS 15.09
+ channel.
+
+ A following shorthand can be used to refer to the official channels:
+
+ nixpkgs=channel:nixos-15.09
+
+ The search path can be extended using the `-I` option, which takes
+ precedence over `NIX_PATH`.
+
+ - `NIX_IGNORE_SYMLINK_STORE`
+ Normally, the Nix store directory (typically `/nix/store`) is not
+ allowed to contain any symlink components. This is to prevent
+ “impure” builds. Builders sometimes “canonicalise” paths by
+ resolving all symlink components. Thus, builds on different machines
+ (with `/nix/store` resolving to different locations) could yield
+ different results. This is generally not a problem, except when
+ builds are deployed to machines where `/nix/store` resolves
+ differently. If you are sure that you’re not going to do that, you
+ can set `NIX_IGNORE_SYMLINK_STORE` to `1`.
+
+ Note that if you’re symlinking the Nix store so that you can put it
+ on another file system than the root file system, on Linux you’re
+ better off using `bind` mount points, e.g.,
+
+ $ mkdir /nix
+ $ mount -o bind /mnt/otherdisk/nix /nix
+
+ Consult the mount 8 manual page for details.
+
+ - `NIX_STORE_DIR`
+ Overrides the location of the Nix store (default `prefix/store`).
+
+ - `NIX_DATA_DIR`
+ Overrides the location of the Nix static data directory (default
+ `prefix/share`).
+
+ - `NIX_LOG_DIR`
+ Overrides the location of the Nix log directory (default
+ `prefix/var/log/nix`).
+
+ - `NIX_STATE_DIR`
+ Overrides the location of the Nix state directory (default
+ `prefix/var/nix`).
+
+ - `NIX_CONF_DIR`
+ Overrides the location of the system Nix configuration directory
+ (default `prefix/etc/nix`).
+
+ - `NIX_USER_CONF_FILES`
+ Overrides the location of the user Nix configuration files to load
+ from (defaults to the XDG spec locations). The variable is treated
+ as a list separated by the `:` token.
+
+ - `TMPDIR`
+ Use the specified directory to store temporary files. In particular,
+ this includes temporary build directories; these can take up
+ substantial amounts of disk space. The default is `/tmp`.
+
+ - `NIX_REMOTE`
+ This variable should be set to `daemon` if you want to use the Nix
+ daemon to execute Nix operations. This is necessary in [multi-user
+ Nix installations](../installation/multi-user.md). If the Nix
+ daemon's Unix socket is at some non-standard path, this variable
+ should be set to `unix://path/to/socket`. Otherwise, it should be
+ left unset.
+
+ - `NIX_SHOW_STATS`
+ If set to `1`, Nix will print some evaluation statistics, such as
+ the number of values allocated.
+
+ - `NIX_COUNT_CALLS`
+ If set to `1`, Nix will print how often functions were called during
+ Nix expression evaluation. This is useful for profiling your Nix
+ expressions.
+
+ - `GC_INITIAL_HEAP_SIZE`
+ If Nix has been configured to use the Boehm garbage collector, this
+ variable sets the initial size of the heap in bytes. It defaults to
+ 384 MiB. Setting it to a low value reduces memory consumption, but
+ will increase runtime due to the overhead of garbage collection.