[Nix-dev] deploying nix-built software to non-nix linux systems

[Michael Raskin]

>> I'm interested in using nix/nixos to build an application with its
>> full set of dependencies, and then deploy it to non-nixos machines as
>> a self-contained package (up to and including the system libraries),
>> without root privileges. Ideally I would like to not require that any
>> nix tools be available on the target system. The perfect workflow
>> would be something like
>> 
>> # on any linux system
>> $ wget https://some/path/to/my-app.tar.gz
>> $ tar -xf my-app.tar.gz
>> $ ./my-app/bin/my-app # run the application -> it should not try to
>> access anything outside ./my-app
>> 
>> Is this possible? 
>
>No, this is not possible unless you do static linking or some deep
>ld-linux/patchelf magic. For instance, my-app will have references to Glibc in
>the Nix store, which are not relocatable.

Technically, one could install a second Nix instance with 
/home/target-user/nix instead of /nix as Nix root. I did try this, it 
works somehow (it also means you get no binary caches, of course).