macOS: /etc/bashrc and /etc/zshrc converted from links to regular files each reboot

[eripa]

Hi,

I have a slightly different issue than #593, but seem related. The workaround in #593 only checks the content of the file, and not the file type. I'll try and get a PR submitted.

Instead of the below files being overwritten on upgrades, each time I reboot my machine the symbolic links are dereferenced and "converted" to real files.

Before reboot (symlinks):

$ ls -l /etc/zshrc /etc/bashrc
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 18 Nov 12 12:16 /etc/bashrc -> /etc/static/bashrc
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 17 Nov 12 12:16 /etc/zshrc -> /etc/static/zshrc

After reboot (regular files):

$ ls -l /etc/zshrc /etc/bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1.2K Nov 12 12:11 /etc/bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1.2K Nov 12 12:11 /etc/zshrc

Which then results in:

error: Unexpected files in /etc, aborting activation
The following files have unrecognized content and would be overwritten:

  /etc/bashrc
  /etc/zshrc

Please check there is nothing critical in these files, rename them by adding .before-nix-darwin to the end, and then try again.

nix installed via using the Determinate systems installer 0.14.0.

$ nix --version
nix (Nix) 2.18.1

macOS:

 System Version:	macOS 14.1.1 (23B2082)
  Kernel Version:	Darwin 23.1.0

Installation receipt:
receipt.json

[Hoverbear]

I believe this may be caused by #672 . 🤔

[eripa]

Thanks for the reply @Hoverbear. Yes, I was running nix from the determinate installer installed a few months ago that didn't experience this behaviour, so something has regressed since then. (it was also on macOS Sonoma back then)

[dhess]

Yes, I'm seeing this behavior as well with dac0adc.

[Hoverbear]

We're investigating, thanks for this report. We are cutting a new release soon, it may not have a fix for this specific problem, that'll have to wait for a future release.

[purplenoodlesoop]

+1, experiencing this too and it makes using nix-darwin far less comfortable. My error is slightly different though

error: Unexpected files in /etc, aborting activation
The following files have unrecognized content and would be overwritten:

  /etc/bashrc
  /etc/zshrc
  /etc/zshenv

[Hoverbear]

I discussed this with @grahamc and the planned solution would be to not do the shell recovery if the files are symlinks.

[Hoverbear]

This should be fixed in the next release!

[eripa]

Love it, thank you!!

[purplenoodlesoop]

@Hoverbear tysm!

[jakzale]

I am hit by the same issue. I guess in the meantime I can disable systems.determinate.nix-installer.nix-hook.

What will be the process of upgrading from 15.1 to 15.2? Will it require re-running nix-installer?

[Hoverbear]

Yes it will be that. I expect we'll cut a new release soon -- Sorry about the delay. The holidays are a thing. 😅

[steinuil]

I'm a bit lost on the upgrading steps.

• Running curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf -L https://install.determinate.systems/nix | sh -s -- install prompted me to run /nix/nix-installer uninstall
• Running /nix/nix-installer uninstall prompted me to uninstall nix-darwin
• I ran nix run nix-darwin#darwin-uninstaller (the nix-build method didn't work because I don't have a nixpkgs channel), which seemed to successfully remove nix-darwin

Though after that /nix/nix-installer uninstall still tells me that a nix-darwin installation was detected.

[Hoverbear]

Those should be the steps!

The installer looks for the binaries darwin-option, darwin-rebuild and runs launchctl print system/org.nixos.activate-system. Do any of those exist for you?

[eripa]

I tried to just run the installer again, but it prompted me to uninstall or just upgrade nix. So I figured I had to uninstall/reinstall. So I did the dance, but failed with a bunch of issues related to APFS etc. Had to reboot and clean up the remnants manually (I looked at the regular nix docs for some inspiration).

After that was done I rebooted and re-ran the installer and applied my flake again, it worked well. After another reboot it all seems to work fine, I don't have this issue anymore! 😄

Thanks a lot for fixing this! 🙏 ❤️

It would be great to have a way to upgrade the hooks/helpers that this nix-installer puts in place w/o having to completely nuke the entire installation. 😊

[Hoverbear]

@eripa I'm sorry about the apfs issues! Out of curiousity was this on Sonoma with Filevault?

[eripa]

No problem @Hoverbear, I'm using macoS Sonoma with Filevault yes (fresh install, new computer)

[Hoverbear]

Okay, we've seen several reports of the same situation.

[cole-h]

I believe this was fixed by #767 (which was released in https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-installer/releases/tag/v0.16.0) -- please let me know if that is not the case!