# Installing a Binary Distribution

The easiest way to install Nix is to run the following command:

    $ sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install)

This will run the installer interactively (causing it to explain what it is doing more explicitly), and perform the default "type" of install for your platform:

- single-user on Linux

- multi-user on macOS

  > Notes on read-only filesystem root in macOS 10.15 Catalina +

  > - It took some time to support this cleanly. You may see posts, examples, and tutorials using obsolete workarounds.
  > - Supporting it cleanly made macOS installs too complex to qualify as single-user, so this type is no longer supported on macOS.

We recommend the multi-user install if it supports your platform and you can authenticate with `sudo`.

# Single User Installation

To explicitly select a single-user installation on your system:

    $ sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --no-daemon

This will perform a single-user installation of Nix, meaning that `/nix` is owned by the invoking user. You should run this under your usual user account, not as root. The script will invoke `sudo` to create `/nix` if it doesn’t already exist. If you don’t have `sudo`, you should manually create `/nix` first as root, e.g.:

    $ mkdir /nix
    $ chown alice /nix

The install script will modify the first writable file from amongst `.bash_profile`, `.bash_login` and `.profile` to source `~/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh`. You can set the `NIX_INSTALLER_NO_MODIFY_PROFILE` environment variable before executing the install script to disable this behaviour.

You can uninstall Nix simply by running:

    $ rm -rf /nix

# Multi User Installation

The multi-user Nix installation creates system users, and a system service for the Nix daemon.

Supported Systems

- Linux running systemd, with SELinux disabled
- macOS

You can instruct the installer to perform a multi-user installation on your system:

    $ sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon

The multi-user installation of Nix will create build users between the user IDs 30001 and 30032, and a group with the group ID 30000. You should run this under your usual user account, not as root. The script will invoke `sudo` as needed.

> Note

> If you need Nix to use a different group ID or user ID set, you will have to download the tarball manually and edit the install script.

The installer will modify `/etc/bashrc`, and `/etc/zshrc` if they exist. The installer will first back up these files with a `.backup-before-nix` extension. The installer will also create `/etc/profile.d/nix.sh`.

You can uninstall Nix with the following commands:

    sudo rm -rf /etc/profile/nix.sh /etc/nix /nix ~root/.nix-profile ~root/.nix-defexpr ~root/.nix-channels ~/.nix-profile ~/.nix-defexpr ~/.nix-channels

    # If you are on Linux with systemd, you will need to run:
    sudo systemctl stop nix-daemon.socket
    sudo systemctl stop nix-daemon.service
    sudo systemctl disable nix-daemon.socket
    sudo systemctl disable nix-daemon.service
    sudo systemctl daemon-reload

    # If you are on macOS, you will need to run:
    sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.nixos.nix-daemon.plist
    sudo rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.nixos.nix-daemon.plist

There may also be references to Nix in `/etc/profile`, `/etc/bashrc`, and `/etc/zshrc` which you may remove.

# macOS Installation

We believe we have ironed out how to cleanly support the read-only root on modern macOS. New installs will do this automatically, and you can also re-run a new installer to convert your existing setup.

This section previously detailed the situation, options, and trade-offs, but it now only outlines what the installer does. You don't need to know this to run the installer, but it may help if you run into trouble:

- create a new APFS volume for your Nix store
- update `/etc/synthetic.conf` to direct macOS to create a "synthetic" empty root directory to mount your volume
- specify mount options for the volume in `/etc/fstab`
  - `rw`: read-write
  - `noauto`: prevent the system from auto-mounting the volume (so the LaunchDaemon mentioned below can control mounting it, and to avoid masking problems with that mounting service).
  - `nobrowse`: prevent the Nix Store volume from showing up on your desktop; also keeps Spotlight from spending resources to index this volume
- if you have FileVault enabled
  - generate an encryption password
  - put it in your system Keychain
  - use it to encrypt the volume
- create a system LaunchDaemon to mount this volume early enough in the boot process to avoid problems loading or restoring any programs that need access to your Nix store

# Installing a pinned Nix version from a URL

NixOS.org hosts version-specific installation URLs for all Nix versions since 1.11.16, at `https://releases.nixos.org/nix/nix-version/install`.

These install scripts can be used the same as the main NixOS.org installation script:

    $ sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install)

In the same directory of the install script are sha256 sums, and gpg signature files.

# Installing from a binary tarball

You can also download a binary tarball that contains Nix and all its dependencies. (This is what the install script at https://nixos.org/nix/install does automatically.) You should unpack it somewhere (e.g. in `/tmp`), and then run the script named `install` inside the binary tarball:

    $ cd /tmp
    $ tar xfj nix-1.8-x86_64-darwin.tar.bz2
    $ cd nix-1.8-x86_64-darwin
    $ ./install

If you need to edit the multi-user installation script to use different group ID or a different user ID range, modify the variables set in the file named `install-multi-user`.