[Nix-dev] Dealing with self-updating packages

[Russell O'Connor]

Dear nixers,

I'm working on packaging gsutil <
https://developers.google.com/storage/docs/gsutil>.  This software comes
with a "feature" that it can update itself by downloading the latest
version and replacing itself in place.

Obviously this isn't going to work, and indeed when I force an update it
fails with:

$ gsutil update -f
Checking for software update...
This command will update to the "4.6" version of
gsutil at
/nix/store/4p33in0gqspwv2f4w2q0fq03cvj1iq9c-gsutil-4.6/share/gsutil
Proceed? [y/N] y
Copying gs://pub/gsutil.tar.gz...
Downloading file://gsutil.tar.gz:                                2.1 MB/2.1
MB
Downloading file://gsutil.tar.gz:                                2.1 MB/2.1
MB
OSError: Read-only file system.

My question is, how do you guys generally deal with this sort of software?

I was thinking of creating a patch that will disable the update
functionality.  I would try to keep the notification of newer versions are
available, but instead direct the user to update their nix-channel and/or
notify the maintainer to update the version in nixpkgs.

Thanks.
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