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From: "Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) [E]" <BBuchbinder AT niaid DOT nih DOT gov>
To: "'cygwin AT cygwin DOT com'" <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: RE: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 05:01:52 +0000
Message-ID: <6CF2FC1279D0844C9357664DC5A08BA21B1968@MLBXV06.nih.gov>
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Christopher Faylor sent the following at Monday, November 04, 2013 3:31 PM
>On Mon, Nov 04, 2013 at 08:13:41PM +0000, Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID)
>[E] wrote:>
>>Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] sent the following at Monday, November 04, 2013 1:28 PM
>>>Thanks for the suggestion. My Systems team need to install from
>>>scratch on bare boxes, from only an image DVD (which contained all the
>>>requisites of the future machine, including CYGWIN's setup and the
>>>downloaded directory, as I previously described).
>>
>>If you want cygwin on an image DVD, just copy an installation to the
>>disk from which the DVD is made, thereby avoiding setup.  (That is
>>similar to how I clone my desktop on C: via H: to my laptop - also
>>on C:.)  Then you just need a script to customize /etc/passwd,
>>/etc/group, create /home/$user, and maybe re-run some of the scripts
>>in /etc/postinstall/.
>>
>>Ideas for updating from a master installation without setup available
>>upon request.
>
>That's how I'd do it if you can get everything to fit on a DVD.
>>(I suspect that this method is not supported by this list since setup
>>is not used.)
>
>Well, no, but it's simple enough that the only problems I'd expect
>would be with your scripts. Do you want to package them up and make
>them available for everyone via setup.exe? Then they actually would be
>supported. :-)

What I have mirrors MY desktop ("master") to MY laptop ("clone") via a
network drive (since there is not direct connection between the two
machines.  (Note:  The network installation is usable when connected
via Citrix.)  I capitalize "MY" to emphasize that this would need changes
to serve as a master for others.

So what I use wouldn't work for a cloned install.  Therefore, I'll need
more encouragement and guidance as to what is wanted to consider providing
a package.

But I can give advice.

I use Windows programs, usually when no cygwin processes are running.
(So this isn't even supported by the list.)  However, I think that it
works even with running processes, as long as they are on <source> and
not <target>.

I copy with xcopy in a cmd batch file:

  xcopy <source> <target> /d /s /v /c /i /f /g /h /r /k /y

I don't do this, but the batch file on the target machine should then
run a script that customizes the installation, creating the /etc/passwd
and /etc/group files, the /home/$USER directory, and whatever else is
needed.  (That I don't know everything that might be needed is another
reason for me to not created a package.)  For example:

  c:\cygwin\bin\dash -c /bin/customization_script

Using this to update an installation gets more complicated.

Because I'm updating, I then use mirror.exe, which is a Windows command
line program available from <http://home.cs.tum.edu/~jain/>.  This
deletes files and directories from <target> that no longer exist on
<source>.  I could have just skip xcopy, but I was worried that mirror
might not do something that xcopy does.  (I forget exactly what
"something" was, but maybe permissions.)

  mirror <source> <target>

This works OK since I want both C drives to be identical and I don't need
changes to the laptop to propagate back to the desktop.

Note that mirror has options (-if=<file mask> and -ir=<reg. expr.>) that
allows one to skip files or directories that involved customizations on
the target machine.  For example:

  mirror <source> <target> -if=\etc\group -if=\etc\passwd -if=\home\

I suppose that one could use rsync (either windows or Cygwin versions)
or unison instead of mirror, but I've no experience with them so have
never tried.

Best wishes,

- Barry
  Disclaimer: Statements made herein are not made on behalf of NIAID.

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