naersk/README.md

Naersk

Nix support for building cargo crates.

• Install
• Configuration
• Comparison

Install

Use niv:

$ niv add nmattia/naersk

And then

let
    pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
    sources = import ./nix/sources.nix;
    naersk = pkgs.callPackage sources.naersk {};
in naersk.buildPackage ./path/to/rust

NOTE: ./path/to/rust/ should contain a Cargo.lock.

Configuration

The buildPackage function also accepts an attribute set. The attributes are described below. When the argument passed in not an attribute set, e.g.

naersk.buildPackage theArg

it is converted to an attribute set equivalent to { root = theArg; }.

Attribute	Description
name	The name of the derivation.
version	The version of the derivation.
src	Used by naersk as source input to the derivation. When root is not set, src is also used to discover the Cargo.toml and Cargo.lock.
root	Used by naersk to read the Cargo.toml and Cargo.lock files. May be different from src. When src is not set, root is (indirectly) used as src.
cargoBuild	The command to use for the build. Default: ''cargo "''${cargo_options[@]}" build "''${cargo_release[@]}" -j $NIX_BUILD_CORES -Z unstable-options --out-dir out''
doCheck	When true, checkPhase is run. Default: true
cargoTestCommands	The commands to run in the checkPhase. Default: [ ''cargo "''${cargo_options[@]}" test "''${cargo_release[@]}" -j $NIX_BUILD_CORES'' ]
buildInputs	Extra buildInputs to all derivations. Default: []
cargoOptions	Options passed to cargo before the command (cargo OPTIONS ) Default: []
doDoc	When true, cargo doc is run and a new output doc is generated. Default: true
release	When true, all cargo builds are run with --release. Default: true
override	An override for all derivations involved in the build. Default: (x: x)
singleStep	When true, no intermediary (dependency-only) build is run. Enabling singleStep greatly reduces the incrementality of the builds. Default: false
targets	The targets to build if the Cargo.toml is a virtual manifest.
copyBins	When true, the resulting binaries are copied to $out/bin. Default: true
copyDocsToSeparateOutput	When true, the documentation is generated in a different output, doc. Default: true
doDocFail	When true, the build fails if the documentation step fails; otherwise the failure is ignored. Default: false
removeReferencesToSrcFromDocs	When true, references to the nix store are removed from the generated documentation. Default: true
compressTarget	When true, the build output of intermediary builds is compressed with Zstandard. This reduces the size of closures. Default: true
copyTarget	When true, the target/ directory is copied to $out. Default: false
usePureFromTOML	Whether to use the fromTOML built-in or not. When set to false the python package remarshal is used instead (in a derivation) and the JSON output is read with builtins.fromJSON. This is a workaround for old versions of Nix. May be used safely from Nix 2.3 onwards where all bugs in builtins.fromTOML seem to have been fixed. Default: true

Comparison

There are two other notable Rust frameworks in Nix: rustPlatform and carnix.

naersk uses cargo directly, as opposed to carnix which emulates cargo's build logic. Moreover naersk sources build information directly from the project's Cargo.lock which makes any code generation unnecessary.

For the same reason, naersk does not need anything like rustPlatform's cargoSha256. All crates are downloaded using the sha256 checksums provided in the project's Cargo.lock.

Finally naersk supports incremental builds by first performing a dependency-only build, and then a build that depends on the top-level crate's code and configuration.