nix-super/doc/manual/src/command-ref/nix-store/export.md

Name

nix-store --export - export store paths to a Nix Archive

Synopsis

nix-store --export paths…

Description

The operation --export writes a serialisation of the specified store paths to standard output in a format that can be imported into another Nix store with nix-store --import. This is like nix-store --dump, except that the Nix Archive (NAR) produced by that command doesn’t contain the necessary meta-information to allow it to be imported into another Nix store (namely, the set of references of the path).

This command does not produce a closure of the specified paths, so if a store path references other store paths that are missing in the target Nix store, the import will fail.

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Examples

Example

Deploy GNU Hello to an airgapped machine via USB stick.

Write the closure to the block device on a machine with internet connection:

[alice@itchy]$ storePath=$(nix-build '<nixpkgs>' -I nixpkgs=channel:nixpkgs-unstable -A hello --no-out-link)
[alice@itchy]$ nix-store --export $(nix-store --query --requisites $storePath) | sudo dd of=/dev/usb

Read the closure from the block device on the machine without internet connection:

[bob@scratchy]$ hello=$(sudo dd if=/dev/usb | nix-store --import | tail -1)
[bob@scratchy]$ $hello/bin/hello
Hello, world!