nix-tool-installer

nix-tool-installer is a flakified library that can be used to create install scripts for arbitrary nix-based tools. Those install scripts will:

1. Check whether nix is installed, and install it, if not.
2. Install the given tool (using nix).

You can create an install script like this:

{
  inputs.flake-utils.url = "github:numtide/flake-utils";
  inputs.nix-tool-installer.url = "github:garnix-io/nix-tool-installer";

  outputs = { self, flake-utils, nix-tool-installer }:
    flake-utils.lib.eachDefaultSystem (system:
      {
        packages = {
          default = nix-tool-installer.lib.${system}.mkInstallScript {
            toolName = "hello";
            flakeLocation = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/f098c1634d7bc427d9fe51e5f536c8aed65c1991#hello";
            testCommand = "hello";
          };
        };
      }
    );
}

And then build it with:

nix build

This will symlink the generated script in result.

Then you can e.g. host the install script on https://example.com/install.sh and have users run it with:

sh <(curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://example.com/install.sh)

Development

You can run the script in a ubuntu VM to test it out:

nix develop -c $SHELL
just test-run-in-vagrant

The script will ask you for a sudo password, which is vagrant.

You can tear down the VM with:

just test-teardown