Name

nix serve - serve a Nix store as a HTTP binary cache

Synopsis

nix serve [option...]

Examples

Serve the local Nix store on the default port (8080), listening on localhost only:
```
# nix serve
Listening on http://127.0.0.1:8080/
```

Serve the local store on all interfaces, on port 9000:

# nix serve --listen-address 0.0.0.0 --port 9000

On another machine, you can then use this server as a substituter:

# nix copy --from http://other-host:8080 /nix/store/...-hello-2.12.1

Serve a chroot store as a binary cache:
```
# nix serve --store /tmp/my-store
```

Description

nix serve runs an HTTP server that exposes a Nix store as a binary cache. Clients can fetch store paths from this server by adding its URL to their list of substituters.

NARs are served uncompressed.

Note

nix serve only handles GET and HEAD requests; it cannot be used to upload paths to the store. It also does not implement authentication or TLS — if you want to expose it to the public internet, run it behind a reverse proxy such as nginx.

To shut down the server, send it a SIGINT signal.

Options

--listen-address address

IP address to listen on (default: 127.0.0.1). Use 0.0.0.0 or :: to listen on all interfaces.
--port / -p port

Port to listen on (default: 8080). Use 0 to dynamically allocate a free port.
--port-file path

Write the bound port number to this file.
--priority priority

Priority of this cache (overrides the store's default).

--debug

Set the logging verbosity level to 'debug'.
--log-format format

Set the format of log output; one of raw, internal-json, bar or bar-with-logs.
--print-build-logs / -L

Print full build logs on standard error.
--quiet

Decrease the logging verbosity level.
--verbose / -v

Increase the logging verbosity level.

Miscellaneous global options

--help

Show usage information.
--offline

Disable substituters and consider all previously downloaded files up-to-date.
--option name value

Set the Nix configuration setting name to value (overriding nix.conf).
--refresh

Consider all previously downloaded files out-of-date.
--version

Show version information.

Note

See man nix.conf for overriding configuration settings with command line flags.

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