nixos-enter(8)

💅 nixos-enter(8) — from the System Manager's Manual bestie

okay so picture this: you've got a whole NixOS system sitting there in a directory, and you just want to step inside it and vibe. that's what this page is about. no cap.

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✨ NAME ✨

nixos-enter — run a command in a NixOS chroot environment 🫶

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

nixos-enter [--root root] [--system system]
            [--command | -c shell-command] [--silent] [--help]
            [-- arguments ...]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So nixos-enter runs a command inside a NixOS chroot environment — like, literally inside a filesystem hierarchy that you already prepared earlier using nixos-install(8). it's giving "teleport into your other self" energy. iconic.

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• --root root — the path to the NixOS system you wanna enter, bestie. defaults to /mnt. (yes, the classic.)
• --system system — which NixOS system configuration to use. defaults to /nix/var/nix/profiles/system. and here's the cute part: you can time-travel back to a previous NixOS configuration by specifying a path like /nix/var/nix/profiles/system-106-link. lowkey obsessed.
• --command shell-command, -c shell-command — the bash command to execute. that's it, that's the whole vibe.
• --silent — suppresses all output from the activation script of the target system. shhh 🤫 main character energy is quiet energy.
• -- — interpret the remaining arguments as the program name and arguments to be invoked. important: the program is not executed in a shell. fr fr, no shell involved.

also --help is in the synopsis up there 👆 so go off if you need it.

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

• nixos-enter --root /mnt — start an interactive shell in the NixOS installation in /mnt. slay, you're in. 💅
• nixos-enter -c 'ls -l /; cat /proc/mounts' — run a shell command. two commands, one string, easy.
• nixos-enter -- cat /proc/mounts — run a non-shell command. no shell, just straight to the program. periodt.

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

Eelco Dolstra and the Nixpkgs/NixOS contributors — absolute legends, all of them 💜

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okay that's genuinely the whole page, you ate that. go enter some chroots bestie 🦋✨

this one's from the Debian manual, dated January 1, 1980 — yes really, that date, it's iconic — and it's the nixos-enter(8) page. mwah 💋