How to compile a program statically on NixOS?

Question

I'm trying to compile a simple program into a static executable:

$ cat hello.c
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
    puts("Hello, world!");
}

However, I'm met with the following error:

$ gcc -static hello.c -o hello
/nix/store/p792j5f44l3f0xi7ai5jllwnxqwnka88-binutils-2.31.1/bin/ld: cannot find -lc
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

Answer 1

This is because the static libc is provided separately in nixpkgs. Try this:

$ nix-shell -p gcc glibc.static
these paths will be fetched (1.37 MiB download, 9.12 MiB unpacked):
  /nix/store/7q44r8ps2yv9zr1bxhff49xb6hh3xrnn-glibc-2.31-static
copying path '/nix/store/7q44r8ps2yv9zr1bxhff49xb6hh3xrnn-glibc-2.31-static' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'...

[nix-shell:~]$ gcc -static hello.c -o hello

Of course, if you often find yourself needing the static libraries, you can add this package to your configuration.