nix-env-delete-generations - Man Page

nix-env --delete-generations generations

This operation deletes the specified generations of the current profile.

generations can be a one of the following:

• <number>...

  A list of generation numbers, each one a separate command-line argument.

  Delete exactly the profile generations given by their generation number. Deleting the current generation is not allowed.

• The special value old

  Delete all generations except the current one.

  WARNING

  Older and newer generations will be deleted by this operation.

  One might expect this to just delete older generations than the current one, but that is only true if the current generation is also the latest. Because one can roll back to a previous generation, it is possible to have generations newer than the current one. They will also be deleted.

• <number>d

  The last number days

  Example: 30d

  Delete all generations created more than number days ago, except the most recent one of them. This allows rolling back to generations that were available within the specified period.

• +<number>

  The last number generations up to the present

  Example: +5

  Keep the last number generations, along with any newer than current.

Periodically deleting old generations is important to make garbage collection effective. The is because profiles are also garbage collection roots — any store object reachable from a profile is "alive" and ineligible for deletion.

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