travis-nix-proot

travis-nix-proot is a helper script for testing with Nix (https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs) on Travis CI without sudo. It uses proot (http://proot.me) under the hood to fake root access. This allows Travis containers to be used to full effect.

Features

• Create a new Nix installation environment in one command
• Run commands that require super-user privileges in the Nix environment
• Use Travis caching for the Nix environment so subsequent builds run faster

Example .travis.yml

The following is a sample .travis.yml for a project that uses BATS (https://github.com/sstephenson/bats) for testing. It:

1. Creates a Nix environment (from cache if possible)
2. Installs BATS in the Nix environment
3. Runs BATS on the project's testsuite (in the Nix environment)
4. Prunes the Nix store and exports it to cache

# sample .travis.yml for use with travis-nix-proot
sudo: false
language: c

install:
  # Install travis-nix-proot into $HOME/.travis-nix-proot directory
  - bash <(curl -sSL https://github.com/robbinch/travis-nix-proot/raw/master/install)

  # Setup PATH
  - export PATH=$HOME/.travis-nix-proot/bin:$PATH

  # Setup Nix environment (from cache if possible) and nixpkgs-unstable channel
  # Among the directories created are:
  #  - $HOME/travis-nix-proot.rootfs, this contains /nix, /etc and other
  #    directories used by Nix but not necessary for caching
  #  - $HOME/travis-nix-proot.cache, this is the only directory Travis needs to
  #    cache and contains /nix/store, profiles, etc
  - travis-nix-proot setup

script:
  # Run commands under the Nix environment
  # (eg, to install BATS <https://github.com/sstephenson/bats>)
  - travis-nix-proot nix-env -i bats

  # Run bats command in Nix environment on this project's tests
  - travis-nix-proot bats test.sh
  # If test.sh is executable and starts with `#!/usr/bin/env bats`, it can be
  # started directly with:
  # - travis-nix-proot test.sh

before_cache:
  # Run nix-collect-garbage in Nix environment to prune /nix/store
  - travis-nix-proot gc

  # Dump Nix DB to cache
  - travis-nix-proot dump-db

cache:
  directories:
    # Use caching to skip rebuilding of Nix environment on next run
    - $HOME/travis-nix-proot.cache