diff --git a/corepkgs/nar/nar.sh b/corepkgs/nar/nar.sh
index 6ffcf63224..3dbeed0295 100644
--- a/corepkgs/nar/nar.sh
+++ b/corepkgs/nar/nar.sh
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 #! /bin/sh
 
-/tmp/nix/bin/nix --dump --file "$path" > $out || exit 1
+/tmp/nix/bin/nix --dump --file "$path" | bzip2 > $out || exit 1
diff --git a/corepkgs/nar/unnar.sh b/corepkgs/nar/unnar.sh
index e6a3f3c1fe..01b6a3ebe4 100644
--- a/corepkgs/nar/unnar.sh
+++ b/corepkgs/nar/unnar.sh
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 #! /bin/sh
 
-/tmp/nix/bin/nix --restore "$out" < $nar || exit 1
+bunzip2 < $nar | /tmp/nix/bin/nix --restore "$out" || exit 1
diff --git a/scripts/nix-pull b/scripts/nix-pull
index 6404cb79a1..3203225853 100644
--- a/scripts/nix-pull
+++ b/scripts/nix-pull
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ while (<CONFFILE>) {
             my $fn = $1;
             next if $fn =~ /\.\./;
             next if $fn =~ /\//;
-            next unless $fn =~ /-([0-9a-z]{32})(-s-([0-9a-z]{32}))?\.nar/;
+            next unless $fn =~ /-([0-9a-z]{32})(-s-([0-9a-z]{32}))?\.nar.bz2$/;
             my $hash = $1;
             my $fshash = $3;
 
diff --git a/scripts/nix-push b/scripts/nix-push
index 248a3b9174..bf30f3a49d 100644
--- a/scripts/nix-push
+++ b/scripts/nix-push
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ foreach my $hash (@ARGV) {
         if ($path =~ /-s-([0-9a-z]{32}).nix$/) {
             $name = "$name-s-$1";
         }
-        $name = $name . ".nar";
+        $name = $name . ".nar.bz2";
 
         # Construct a Fix expression that creates a Nix archive.
         my $fixexpr = 
@@ -65,4 +65,6 @@ foreach my $hash (@ARGV) {
 }
 
 # Push the prebuilts to the server. !!! FIXME
-system "rsync -av -e ssh @pushlist eelco\@losser.st-lab.cs.uu.nl:/home/eelco/public_html/nix-dist/";
+if (scalar @pushlist > 0) {
+    system "rsync -av -e ssh @pushlist eelco\@losser.st-lab.cs.uu.nl:/home/eelco/public_html/nix-dist/";
+}