Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive

Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive

[Andreas Wettergren]

Hi,
We have a shared Cygwin environment installed to a Windows network share at my workplace, 
and I have been assigned the task to update it (along with installing a Perl program I wrote + dependencies).

However, I’m having problems running the setup program to install to the network path.

Background:

The computer I’m using to launch the setup from is running Windows 7 Professsional (64 - bit).
I’m using setup-x86.exe version 2.874.
Antivirus (Webroot SecureAnywhere) is disabled, but not completely unloaded, during setup.
(I have permissions to disable Webroot via a control applet, but I don’t think I’m allowed to unload it completely)

The current installation age is unknown, but it seems fairly old.
Looking at the file dates in /bin they are from 2012.

I’m sorry, I don’t have the exact error messages at hand at this time, 
but if needed I will rerun the setup again and take more exact notes.

Ok, so on to the actual problems:

First I tried using an UNC path, but this does not work at all, 
the setup program complains that the UNC path is not an absolute path.
(Should this be considered a bug?  If so I will rerun the setup, get the exact error message and report it separately.)

To work around this, I mapped a network “drive” in Windows Explorer.
The drive is mapped so that my target directory is Z:\Cygwin.

I’m running this as a network user that has full read & write access to the target directory and subdirectories.
This user is also a member of the local administrator group.

Running the setup this way seems to work fine, up to a point where it tries to extract/install base-cygwin-3.8-1,
or more specifically the file /etc/postinstall/000-cygwin-post-install.sh

The symptoms begin with an error saying something like “Unable to extract /etc/ -- the file is in use.” plus a suspicion about a corrupt package.
Skipping past this error gives an almost identical error but about “/etc/postinstall”, 
and skipping that gives another about “/etc/postinstall/000-cygwin-post-install.sh”.

There is something in these messages about the file being updated at boot and it gives you the option to continue anyway,
but this does not seem to work, there is no actual progress past this last error message.
The setup progress window just starts to flicker at this point if i try to continue.
I’ve let the setup keep running for quite some time (20-30 minutes) at this point,
just to see if it eventually keeps going, but it seems to be stuck in a loop.

Closing setup at the “flickering” gives me an error message about not being able to write to the log file.
(The path to the log file in this messages seems to be a mix of Windows- and Unix-style paths.
I’m not sure if that is a red herring or a possible hint of the actual problem.)

The downloaded package base-cygwin-3.8-1 is not corrupt, I can unzip it using 7-zip without problems.
I can also write the file 000-cygwin-post-install.sh manually to Z:\Cygwin\etc\postinstall using Windows Explorer.
(The setup fails even if this file is present beforehand)

Some additional info:

I’ve tried to run the setup to an empty network path (no prior cygwin files, just an empty directory) as well, with identical results.
Nothing gets written to this directory.

I’ve also tried to run the install to a local drive on my computer.
This works as expected, no problems.

My symptoms are quite similar to this issue from the archive;
https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2009-11/msg00607.html
but the cause that time seems to have been a broken version of the setup file:
https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2010-01/msg00686.html

I’ve tried to look at what the setup program is doing at the point where it gets stuck using Process Monitor,
but I haven’t seen anything that seems useful so far. 
Setup seems to access a few registry keys over and over, but I see no failures or anything else notable.
Perhaps i should go back and check earlier in the setup progress (I’m not sure I’ve seen what happens at the time of the first error message.)

Finally, this sort of install routine has apparently worked in the past, 
my colleague tells me this is the way he has updated our Cygwin environment before.
It’s possible he did something slightly differently to what I have done this time though.

Is it possible that this style of installation has worked before, but inadvertently been broken in later versions of the setup program?
I suppose this is a bit outside of the normal use case, but I assume it should be at least possible to install Cygwin this way?

Any hints or suggestions would be much appreciated!

Best regards

Andreas Wettergren
Translation Support
Office: +46 31-360 98 30   |   Amesto Translations
 

Re: Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive

[Erik Soderquist]

On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 5:57 AM, Andreas Wettergren wrote:
> The computer I’m using to launch the setup from is running Windows 7 Professsional (64 - bit).
> I’m using setup-x86.exe version 2.874.

Why 32 bit rather than 64 bit in a 64 bit environment?  (more curious
than anything else, I don't think this affects the outcome).

> Antivirus (Webroot SecureAnywhere) is disabled, but not completely unloaded, during setup.
> (I have permissions to disable Webroot via a control applet, but I don’t think I’m allowed to unload it completely)

Do you have the option of creating a couple virtual machines to test
with virgin Windows installs?  That could relatively quickly determine
if it is something in the exiting environment...

> First I tried using an UNC path, but this does not work at all,
> the setup program complains that the UNC path is not an absolute path.
> (Should this be considered a bug?  If so I will rerun the setup, get the exact error message and report it separately.)

I believe this is expected, but will leave the final determination to
others with greater knowledge than I.

> To work around this, I mapped a network “drive” in Windows Explorer.
> The drive is mapped so that my target directory is Z:\Cygwin.

Did you set the drive mapping to be remembered on future logins?  If
not, a new instance after privilege elevation may also not have the
drive mapping.  (Still might not, I've had UAC/network drive mapping
problems with other programs as well).  Is disabling UAC and running
entirely as local admin to test an option?  For that matter, is
installinng on the host the installation is local to an option?

> The symptoms begin with an error saying something like “Unable to extract /etc/ -- the file is in use.” plus a suspicion about a corrupt package.
> Skipping past this error gives an almost identical error but about “/etc/postinstall”,
> and skipping that gives another about “/etc/postinstall/000-cygwin-post-install.sh”.

When was the most recent filesystems check on the host with the actual
files?  A corrupt directory tree can cause similar issues.

-- Erik

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Re: Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive

[Achim Gratz]

Andreas Wettergren writes:
> I’m running this as a network user that has full read & write access
> to the target directory and subdirectories.  This user is also a
> member of the local administrator group.
[…]
> I’ve tried to run the setup to an empty network path (no prior cygwin
> files, just an empty directory) as well, with identical results.
> Nothing gets written to this directory.

I think the problem is either the local administrator group (sometimes
local administrators are expressedly forbidden to do anything on the
network) or your network user cannot change the DACL on the network
share (another common setup in large organizations).

> I’ve also tried to run the install to a local drive on my computer.
> This works as expected, no problems.

You could try to move / copy that installation to the network share,
then.

> Finally, this sort of install routine has apparently worked in the
> past, my colleague tells me this is the way he has updated our Cygwin
> environment before.  It’s possible he did something slightly
> differently to what I have done this time though.

Or meanwhile some new security policy got installed that throws a
spanner in the works.  If your colleague is still able to update
Cygwin, you'll know it's some sort of access right you're missing and
can work it out from there.


Regards,
Achim.
-- 
+<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk Blofeld]>+

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Re: Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive

[Andrey Repin]

Greetings, Andreas Wettergren!

> Hi,
> We have a shared Cygwin environment installed to a Windows network share at
> my workplace, and I have been assigned the task to update it (along with
> installing a Perl program I wrote + dependencies).

I'll just throw in a note that the way Cygwin operates discourages any
"shared" setup scenario.
If you want a stable set of packages, your only real solution is a local
package mirror.
For more information, look up the "rebase" in Cygwin documentation.


-- 
With best regards,
Andrey Repin
Tuesday, August 23, 2016 12:58:57

Sorry for my terrible english...


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RE: Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive

[Andreas Wettergren]

Thank you very much for the reply, my issue has been resolved, details in my answers below.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com [mailto:cygwin-owner@cygwin.com] On
> Behalf Of Erik Soderquist
> Sent: Monday, August 22, 2016 6:04 PM
> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> Subject: Re: Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive
> 
> On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 5:57 AM, Andreas Wettergren wrote:
> > The computer I’m using to launch the setup from is running Windows 7
> Professsional (64 - bit).
> > I’m using setup-x86.exe version 2.874.
> 
> Why 32 bit rather than 64 bit in a 64 bit environment?  (more curious than
> anything else, I don't think this affects the outcome).
> 

This is partially for historical reasons, and partially because I'm personally not 
100% sure every client that uses the environment is 64-bit yet.

> > Antivirus (Webroot SecureAnywhere) is disabled, but not completely
> unloaded, during setup.
> > (I have permissions to disable Webroot via a control applet, but I
> > don’t think I’m allowed to unload it completely)
> 
> Do you have the option of creating a couple virtual machines to test with
> virgin Windows installs?  That could relatively quickly determine if it is
> something in the exiting environment...
> 
> > First I tried using an UNC path, but this does not work at all, the
> > setup program complains that the UNC path is not an absolute path.
> > (Should this be considered a bug?  If so I will rerun the setup, get
> > the exact error message and report it separately.)
> 
> I believe this is expected, but will leave the final determination to others with
> greater knowledge than I.
> 

Yep, I suspect network installs aren't really a supported scenario anyway, so filing a bug might not be useful.

> > To work around this, I mapped a network “drive” in Windows Explorer.
> > The drive is mapped so that my target directory is Z:\Cygwin.
> 
> Did you set the drive mapping to be remembered on future logins?  If not, a
> new instance after privilege elevation may also not have the drive mapping.
> (Still might not, I've had UAC/network drive mapping problems with other
> programs as well).  Is disabling UAC and running entirely as local admin to test
> an option?  For that matter, is installinng on the host the installation is local to
> an option?
> 

Good points. 
I got some help from my colleague in the end, and it turns out he ran the install as network administrator after all.
In hindsight I should have tried this, but his instructions specifically mentioned this "Cygwin" user, so I assumed they were accurate.

A detail I forgot to mention is that the network share is not really a Windows share, it's actually on a Samba server.
(Sorry, I should have mentioned this, but I forgot).
Although at first glance it seems the Cygwin user I was using looks like it has the correct permissions,
something was obviously missing or incorrectly mapped, running as the network admin worked fine.
I suspect there might be some underlying issue on the Linux file system level or it may be a Samba permissions mapping issue
for the Cygwin user.

UAC should not have been an issue, the account was in the local admins group, 
but having the mapping be remembered would make sense anyhow, I agree.
(And running as the actual local administrator account may perhaps make some minute difference that the group membership 
doesn't bring.)

> > The symptoms begin with an error saying something like “Unable to extract
> /etc/ -- the file is in use.” plus a suspicion about a corrupt package.
> > Skipping past this error gives an almost identical error but about
> > “/etc/postinstall”, and skipping that gives another about
> “/etc/postinstall/000-cygwin-post-install.sh”.
> 
> When was the most recent filesystems check on the host with the actual
> files?  A corrupt directory tree can cause similar issues.
> 

Will do. Even if my immediate problem is solved, I think you may be right,
there seems to be some lingering permissions issue that caused my confusion.

Thanks again, even if my problem turned out to really be account/permissions-related,
your answers might give some useful hints for others with similar problems.

Best regards

Andreas Wettergren
Translation Support
Amesto Translations



> -- Erik
> 
> --
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Re: Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive

[Erik Soderquist]

On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 10:06 AM, Andreas Wettergren  wrote:
>> Why 32 bit rather than 64 bit in a 64 bit environment?  (more curious than
>> anything else, I don't think this affects the outcome).
>>
>
> This is partially for historical reasons, and partially because I'm personally not
> 100% sure every client that uses the environment is 64-bit yet.

Valid reasons  :)

>> > To work around this, I mapped a network “drive” in Windows Explorer.
>> > The drive is mapped so that my target directory is Z:\Cygwin.
>>
>> Did you set the drive mapping to be remembered on future logins?  If not, a
>> new instance after privilege elevation may also not have the drive mapping.
>> (Still might not, I've had UAC/network drive mapping problems with other
>> programs as well).  Is disabling UAC and running entirely as local admin to test
>> an option?  For that matter, is installinng on the host the installation is local to
>> an option?
>
> Good points.
> I got some help from my colleague in the end, and it turns out he ran the install as network administrator after all.
> In hindsight I should have tried this, but his instructions specifically mentioned this "Cygwin" user, so I assumed they were accurate.

Assumptions can be dangerous  ;)

> A detail I forgot to mention is that the network share is not really a Windows share, it's actually on a Samba server.
> (Sorry, I should have mentioned this, but I forgot).

That adds additional twists... I have seen Samba configured (both
accidentally and intentionally) to report "full control" when queried
for what permissions a user has and still have everything locked as
read only for most users.  Windows can now do this from AD Group
Policies as well, but is rarely configured to do so.

> Although at first glance it seems the Cygwin user I was using looks like it has the correct permissions,
> something was obviously missing or incorrectly mapped, running as the network admin worked fine.
> I suspect there might be some underlying issue on the Linux file system level or it may be a Samba permissions mapping issue
> for the Cygwin user.
>
> UAC should not have been an issue, the account was in the local admins group,
> but having the mapping be remembered would make sense anyhow, I agree.
> (And running as the actual local administrator account may perhaps make some minute difference that the group membership
> doesn't bring.)

Actually, unless the cygwin user was a domain account rather than a
local machine account, I would be surprised if it was not receiving
the ghost "full control" I mentioned above.

>> > The symptoms begin with an error saying something like “Unable to extract
>> /etc/ -- the file is in use.” plus a suspicion about a corrupt package.
>> > Skipping past this error gives an almost identical error but about
>> > “/etc/postinstall”, and skipping that gives another about
>> “/etc/postinstall/000-cygwin-post-install.sh”.
>>
>> When was the most recent filesystems check on the host with the actual
>> files?  A corrupt directory tree can cause similar issues.
>>
>
> Will do. Even if my immediate problem is solved, I think you may be right,
> there seems to be some lingering permissions issue that caused my confusion.
>
> Thanks again, even if my problem turned out to really be account/permissions-related,
> your answers might give some useful hints for others with similar problems.



You are very welcome  :)

-- Erik

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RE: Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive

[Andreas Wettergren]

Thanks for your reply, the problem has been resolved, details below and in my previous reply to Erik.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com [mailto:cygwin-owner@cygwin.com] On
> Behalf Of Achim Gratz
> Sent: Monday, August 22, 2016 7:37 PM
> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> Subject: Re: Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive
> 
> Andreas Wettergren writes:
> > I’m running this as a network user that has full read & write access
> > to the target directory and subdirectories.  This user is also a
> > member of the local administrator group.
> […]
> > I’ve tried to run the setup to an empty network path (no prior cygwin
> > files, just an empty directory) as well, with identical results.
> > Nothing gets written to this directory.
> 
> I think the problem is either the local administrator group (sometimes local
> administrators are expressedly forbidden to do anything on the
> network) or your network user cannot change the DACL on the network
> share (another common setup in large organizations).
> 

Yes, it was something like this (I haven't pinpointed the exact cause yet),
running the setup as the network administrator seem to have done the trick.

> > I’ve also tried to run the install to a local drive on my computer.
> > This works as expected, no problems.
> 
> You could try to move / copy that installation to the network share, then.
> 

I had this in mind as something to try, but I wasn't sure if anything in the installation might get incorrect paths or similar.

> > Finally, this sort of install routine has apparently worked in the
> > past, my colleague tells me this is the way he has updated our Cygwin
> > environment before.  It’s possible he did something slightly
> > differently to what I have done this time though.
> 
> Or meanwhile some new security policy got installed that throws a spanner in
> the works.  If your colleague is still able to update Cygwin, you'll know it's
> some sort of access right you're missing and can work it out from there.
> 

Correct, it was some sort of permissions issue, possibly related to underlying Samba problems (see my reply to Erik for details).
I think this Cygwin account I was using was created for a different purpose
(updating a specific in-house program inside Cygwin), and the full install scenario had not been tested before.

Thanks for your suggestions, much appreciated!


Andreas Wettergren
Translation Support
Amesto Translations




> 
> Regards,
> Achim.
> --
> +<[Q+ Matrix-12 WAVE#46+305 Neuron microQkb Andromeda XTk
> Blofeld]>+
> 
> Samples for the Waldorf Blofeld:
> http://Synth.Stromeko.net/Downloads.html#BlofeldSamplesExtra
> 
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RE: Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive

[Andreas Wettergren]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrey Repin [mailto:anrdaemon@yandex.ru]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2016 12:01 PM
> To: Andreas Wettergren <andreas.wettergren@amesto.se>;
> cygwin@cygwin.com
> Subject: Re: Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive
> 
> Greetings, Andreas Wettergren!
> 
> > Hi,
> > We have a shared Cygwin environment installed to a Windows network
> > share at my workplace, and I have been assigned the task to update it
> > (along with installing a Perl program I wrote + dependencies).
> 
> I'll just throw in a note that the way Cygwin operates discourages any
> "shared" setup scenario.
> If you want a stable set of packages, your only real solution is a local package
> mirror.
> For more information, look up the "rebase" in Cygwin documentation.
> 
> 
> --
> With best regards,
> Andrey Repin
> Tuesday, August 23, 2016 12:58:57
> 
> Sorry for my terrible english...

Thanks for your reply.

Noted, but maybe we are talking about different types of sharing?
In our scenario we are actually using the Cygwin installation as a shared multi-user system,
we are not sharing the just the installation packages for multiple installations like a mirror.

It's a bit wild if you ask me :) 
If I didn't use it every day I wouldn't think that sort of setup would work in practice.
There are some valid reasons it has been set up this way, but it does come with some special headaches as well...

I'll look into rebase anyway, thanks for the tip.

(BTW, my original issue has been resolved, for details see my reply to Erik)

Best regards

Andreas Wettergren
Translation Support
Office: +46 31-360 98 30   

Re: Trouble installing to UNC path and/or mapped network drive

[Andrey Repin]

Greetings, Andreas Wettergren!

>> Greetings, Andreas Wettergren!
>> 
>> > Hi,
>> > We have a shared Cygwin environment installed to a Windows network
>> > share at my workplace, and I have been assigned the task to update it
>> > (along with installing a Perl program I wrote + dependencies).
>> 
>> I'll just throw in a note that the way Cygwin operates discourages any
>> "shared" setup scenario.
>> If you want a stable set of packages, your only real solution is a local package
>> mirror.
>> For more information, look up the "rebase" in Cygwin documentation.
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> With best regards,
>> Andrey Repin
>> Tuesday, August 23, 2016 12:58:57
>> 
>> Sorry for my terrible english...

> Thanks for your reply.

> Noted, but maybe we are talking about different types of sharing?
> In our scenario we are actually using the Cygwin installation as a shared multi-user system,
> we are not sharing the just the installation packages for multiple installations like a mirror.

Yes, I did warn you about exactly that scenario. Especially dangerous for
32-bit Cygwin you are using, which has scarce address space to rebase DLL's to.
It may work for cloned systems with stable set of applications installed, but
once you encounter a system with somewhat different address space layout, the
things will start to fall apart.

> It's a bit wild if you ask me :) 
> If I didn't use it every day I wouldn't think that sort of setup would work in practice.
> There are some valid reasons it has been set up this way, but it does come
> with some special headaches as well...

> I'll look into rebase anyway, thanks for the tip.

> (BTW, my original issue has been resolved, for details see my reply to Erik)

Yes, I've seen it.


-- 
With best regards,
Andrey Repin
Wednesday, August 24, 2016 12:45:03

Sorry for my terrible english...


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