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Running the Proxy Server

The Aeroflare proxy server acts as a standard HTTP binary cache. It intercepts requests from the Nix daemon and translates them into OCI manifest fetches and layer pulls.

Starting the Proxy​

To start the proxy daemon manually, run:

nix run github:ItzEmoji/aeroflare -- proxy

By default, the proxy listens on http://127.0.0.1:8080.

Configuring Nix​

To tell Nix to use your local Aeroflare proxy, you must pass it as a substituter.

Ad-hoc Usage​

For a single command, you can pass the flag directly to Nix:

nix build .#default --option extra-substituters "http://127.0.0.1:8080"

Persistent Configuration​

To configure Nix to always use the proxy, edit your nix.conf (usually located at ~/.config/nix/nix.conf or /etc/nix/nix.conf):

extra-substituters = http://127.0.0.1:8080

Note: You must ensure the Aeroflare proxy is running in the background whenever Nix attempts to build or fetch packages, otherwise substitution will fail.

Managing the proxy daemon manually can be tedious. The recommended approach for local development is to use the aeroflare run wrapper.

Important: Currently, if you want Aeroflare to successfully push the resulting artifacts, you must pass the --print-out-paths flag to your Nix build command so Aeroflare knows what to upload.

nix run github:ItzEmoji/aeroflare -- run -- nix build .#default --print-out-paths

This command automatically:

  1. Spawns an ephemeral proxy server on a random open port.
  2. Appends the --option extra-substituters flag to the inner Nix command.
  3. Shuts down the proxy when the build finishes.
  4. Pushes any newly generated build artifacts to the remote backend automatically.

Running as a Container​

If you'd rather not install Nix or Go just to run the proxy, it's also published as a container image — see Docker.