nixpkgs/nixos/doc/manual/development/building-parts.xml

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        xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
        xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
        version="5.0"
        xml:id="sec-building-parts">
 <title>Building Specific Parts of NixOS</title>
 <para>
  With the command <command>nix-build</command>, you can build specific parts of your NixOS configuration. This is done as follows:
<screen>
<prompt>$ </prompt>cd <replaceable>/path/to/nixpkgs/nixos</replaceable>
<prompt>$ </prompt>nix-build -A config.<replaceable>option</replaceable></screen>
  where <replaceable>option</replaceable> is a NixOS option with type “derivation” (i.e. something that can be built). Attributes of interest include:
  <variablelist>
   <varlistentry>
    <term>
     <varname>system.build.toplevel</varname>
    </term>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      The top-level option that builds the entire NixOS system. Everything else in your configuration is indirectly pulled in by this option. This is what <command>nixos-rebuild</command> builds and what <filename>/run/current-system</filename> points to afterwards.
     </para>
     <para>
      A shortcut to build this is:
<screen>
<prompt>$ </prompt>nix-build -A system</screen>
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </varlistentry>
   <varlistentry>
    <term>
     <varname>system.build.manual.manualHTML</varname>
    </term>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      The NixOS manual.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </varlistentry>
   <varlistentry>
    <term>
     <varname>system.build.etc</varname>
    </term>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      A tree of symlinks that form the static parts of <filename>/etc</filename>.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </varlistentry>
   <varlistentry>
    <term>
     <varname>system.build.initialRamdisk</varname>
    </term>
    <term>
     <varname>system.build.kernel</varname>
    </term>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      The initial ramdisk and kernel of the system. This allows a quick way to test whether the kernel and the initial ramdisk boot correctly, by using QEMU’s <option>-kernel</option> and <option>-initrd</option> options:
<screen>
<prompt>$ </prompt>nix-build -A config.system.build.initialRamdisk -o initrd
<prompt>$ </prompt>nix-build -A config.system.build.kernel -o kernel
<prompt>$ </prompt>qemu-system-x86_64 -kernel ./kernel/bzImage -initrd ./initrd/initrd -hda /dev/null
</screen>
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </varlistentry>
   <varlistentry>
    <term>
     <varname>system.build.nixos-rebuild</varname>
    </term>
    <term>
     <varname>system.build.nixos-install</varname>
    </term>
    <term>
     <varname>system.build.nixos-generate-config</varname>
    </term>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      These build the corresponding NixOS commands.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </varlistentry>
   <varlistentry>
    <term>
     <varname>systemd.units.<replaceable>unit-name</replaceable>.unit</varname>
    </term>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      This builds the unit with the specified name. Note that since unit names contain dots (e.g. <literal>httpd.service</literal>), you need to put them between quotes, like this:
<screen>
<prompt>$ </prompt>nix-build -A 'config.systemd.units."httpd.service".unit'
</screen>
      You can also test individual units, without rebuilding the whole system, by putting them in <filename>/run/systemd/system</filename>:
<screen>
<prompt>$ </prompt>cp $(nix-build -A 'config.systemd.units."httpd.service".unit')/httpd.service \
    /run/systemd/system/tmp-httpd.service
<prompt># </prompt>systemctl daemon-reload
<prompt># </prompt>systemctl start tmp-httpd.service
</screen>
      Note that the unit must not have the same name as any unit in <filename>/etc/systemd/system</filename> since those take precedence over <filename>/run/systemd/system</filename>. That’s why the unit is installed as <filename>tmp-httpd.service</filename> here.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </varlistentry>
  </variablelist>
 </para>
</chapter>