%0 Journal Article %1 dolstra2010nixos %A DOLSTRA, EELCO %A LÖH, ANDRES %A PIERRON, NICOLAS %B Journal of Functional Programming %D 2010 %I Cambridge University Press %K distro linux %N 5-6 %P 577-615-- %R DOI: 10.1017/S0956796810000195 %T NixOS: A purely functional Linux distribution %U https://www.cambridge.org/core/article/nixos-a-purely-functional-linux-distribution/C1ACBA2A51D2E5466820F5B5086EA2CE %V 20 %X Existing package and system configuration management tools suffer from an imperative model, where system administration actions such as package upgrades or changes to system configuration files are stateful: they destructively update the state of the system. This leads to many problems, such as the inability to roll back changes easily, to deploy multiple versions of a package side-by-side, to reproduce a configuration deterministically on another machine, or to reliably upgrade a system. In this paper we show that we can overcome these problems by moving to a purely functional system configuration model. This means that all static parts of a system (such as software packages, configuration files and system startup scripts) are built by pure functions and are immutable, stored in a way analogous to a heap in a purely functional language. We have implemented this model in NixOS, a non-trivial Linux distribution that uses the Nix package manager to build the entire system configuration from a modular, purely functional specification.

@article{dolstra2010nixos, abstract = {Existing package and system configuration management tools suffer from an imperative model, where system administration actions such as package upgrades or changes to system configuration files are stateful: they destructively update the state of the system. This leads to many problems, such as the inability to roll back changes easily, to deploy multiple versions of a package side-by-side, to reproduce a configuration deterministically on another machine, or to reliably upgrade a system. In this paper we show that we can overcome these problems by moving to a purely functional system configuration model. This means that all static parts of a system (such as software packages, configuration files and system startup scripts) are built by pure functions and are immutable, stored in a way analogous to a heap in a purely functional language. We have implemented this model in NixOS, a non-trivial Linux distribution that uses the Nix package manager to build the entire system configuration from a modular, purely functional specification.}, added-at = {2021-11-01T04:15:55.000+0100}, author = {DOLSTRA, EELCO and LÖH, ANDRES and PIERRON, NICOLAS}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/20c083fc9de01976a66575727de3f8215/arinbasu}, booktitle = {Journal of Functional Programming}, description = {NixOS: A purely functional Linux distribution | Journal of Functional Programming | Cambridge Core}, doi = {DOI: 10.1017/S0956796810000195}, interhash = {1b3cde53405da70e32d505daf9d7dbf8}, intrahash = {0c083fc9de01976a66575727de3f8215}, issn = {09567968}, keywords = {distro linux}, number = {5-6}, pages = {577-615--}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press}, timestamp = {2021-11-01T04:15:55.000+0100}, title = {NixOS: A purely functional Linux distribution}, url = {https://www.cambridge.org/core/article/nixos-a-purely-functional-linux-distribution/C1ACBA2A51D2E5466820F5B5086EA2CE}, volume = 20, year = 2010 }