3.6 KiB
nixpkgs-update
The future is here; let's evenly distribute it!
Introduction
nixpkgs-update is the code
used by @r-ryantm to semi-automatically
update nixpkgs. It uses package repository information from
Repology.org to
generate a list of outdated packages. A package is considered
"outdated" if a newer version of the package is available at any other
repository tracked by
Repology. nixpkgs-update
tries to update each package in the dumbest way that could work. It
find-replaces the old version number with the new one, uses
nix-build
to try to get the new hash, then tries to build the
package. If it succeeds, it checks the outputs and makes a pull
request. It also uploads the built package to
Cachix, which people can use to
manually test the package without building it themselves.
nixpkgs-update features
Checks
A number of checks are performed to help nixpkgs maintainers gauge the liklihood that an update was successful. All the binaries are run with various flags to see if they have a zero exit code and output the new version number. The outpath directory tree is searched for files containing the new version number. A directory tree and disk usage listing is provided.
Rebuild reports
The PRs made by nixpkgs-update say what packages need to be rebuilt if the pull request is merged. This uses the same mechanism OfBorg uses to put rebuild labels on PRs. Not limited by labels, it can report the exact number of rebuilds and list some of the attrpaths that would need to be rebuilt.
PRs against staging
If a PR merge would cause more than 100 packages to be rebuilt, the PR is made against staging.
Logs
Logs from r-ryantm's
runs are
available on Discourse. There are a lot of packages nixpkgs-update
currently has no hope of updating. Please dredge the logs to find out
why your pet package is not receiving updates.
Cachix
By uploading the build outputs to Cachix, nixpkgs-update allows you to test a package with one command.
Instructions
- Clone this repo:
git clone https://github.com/ryantm/nixpkgs-update && cd nixpkgs-update
- Get a list of oudated packages and place them in a
packages-to-update.txt
file in the root directory of this repository.git clone https://github.com/ryantm/repology-api.git && cd repology-api nix run nixpkgs.cabal2nix -c cabal2nix --shell --hpack . > shell.nix && nix-build shell.nix && result/bin/repology-api > ../packages-to-update.txt
- Return back
cd ..
and run the toolnix run -c nixpkgs-update update
Adding new dependencies / updating Cabal file
nix run nixpkgs.haskellPackages.hpack -c hpack && nix run nixpkgs.cabal2nix -c cabal2nix --hpack . > nixpkgs-update.nix
Development tips
Run a type checker in the background for quicker type checking feedback:
nix-shell --run ghcid