RE: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

RE: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) [E]]

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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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Mikhail Usenko]

Hello.

One of the simple method to install a fresh clone of the existing Cygwin's
installation is such a way:
Create a new Cygwin root install directory and etc/setup subdirectories in it,
copy therein the /etc/setup/installed.db file from the master installation you
want to clone. Then launch setup.exe pointing to the new root directory and
apply 'Reinstall' action on top of the category tree view in the package chooser.

Unfortunately this cannot be executed with an unattended setup because of the
default action in this mode is 'Default' which means to 'Keep' existing
versions of packages or to automatically update to newer versions if they are
present in the selected package repository for the setup. So you will end up
with nothing or only several packages been installed. And there is no
command-line option for setup.exe to specify a reinstall action.

The workarounds are: 1) to add such an option to the setup.exe program;
or 2) to use a special-prepared installed.db file which a priori contains
package versions lesser than those ones in the package repository you are
installing from.

This is a simple sed command to get that kind of installed.db file:
sed 's/^\([^ ]*\) \1-/\1 \1-0./' /etc/setup/installed.db

So, you can put on the DVD the directory named 'Cygwin' containing
the structure like this:

setup-preset/
  etc/
    setup/
      installed.db
packages/

where packages/ is a local mirror of the Cygwin's package directory created
by setup.exe during a 'Download Without Installing' run.

Deploying on the target machine will comprise two commands:

xcopy "DVD-DRIVE:\Cygwin\setup-preset" "C:\Cygwin\" /v/e/h
setup-x86.exe -q -L -l "DVD-DRIVE:\Cygwin\packages" -a "x86" -R "C:\Cygwin"


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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Christopher Faylor]

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.  :-)

cgf

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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[marco atzeri]

Il 11/4/2013 8:27 PM, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] ha scritto:
>>    genini --recursive x86 > x86/setup.ini
>
> That's an interesting piece of information, thanks!
> Where can I get "genini" or "upset" from?
>
> Anton Lavrentiev
> Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI
>

genini:
http://cygwin.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/genini/?cvsroot=cygwin-apps#dirlist



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RE: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) [E]]

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.

(I suspect that this method is not supported by this list since setup
is not used.)

Good luck,

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


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RE: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> you're adding additional requirements

Rather revealing them...

The procedure is still to grab the current setup, make package selection,
download with satisfying the dependencies, then install on a bunch of
boxes in the batch mode, unattended.

When a new set of machines is to be built, repeat the procedure with
then-current CYGWIN, possibly starting with the package selection step
(if needed -- i.e. the package requirements have changed, some requested
to be added / removed)...

I think I've got enough information to relay to our Systems group
and see what they say.

Thanks everybody (including Marco, Achim, and cfg) who responded!

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI


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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Achim Gratz]

Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] writes:
>> Alternatively, you can grab the sources for setup and add an option
> to do what you want the way you want it.
>
> Well, that's a trivial option with open source, of course.  But also
> it means to maintain a branch of our own setup.exe, which is the
> least favorable of all.

I've been down that path earlier than you and have managed to upstream
most of my patches.  I still carry a local branch for a few things,
though.

http://repo.or.cz/w/cygwin-setup.git

The CVS version is mirrored on branch origin.


Regards,
Achim.
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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Achim Gratz]

Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] writes:
>> I have an install script for Cygwin. It's not offline
>
> 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).
>
> From the replies I've got so far, I beginning to think it's close to impossible
> without having to list (all) the packages...

No.  I have scripts to prove otherwise, but they are not yet ready for
public consumption.  If you need it right now, then you'll have to look
elsewhere, otherwise if you are interested in betatesting, drop me a
mail.


Regards,
Achim.
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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Christopher Faylor]

On Mon, Nov 04, 2013 at 07:11:33PM +0000, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] wrote:
>> Alternatively, you can grab the sources for setup and add an option
>to do what you want the way you want it.
>
>Well, that's a trivial option with open source, of course.  But also
>it means to maintain a branch of our own setup.exe, which is the
>least favorable of all.

Hmm.  It seems like you are looking for a magic bullet since everything
suggested is unsatisfactory.  Since there really isn't an option to do
exactly what you want to do then you are going to have to do something.
The emphasis here is on "you".

If you implement a generally useful option like "Install everything in
the download directory" we'll gladly accept it upstream.

If you don't want to do that then setup code changes pretty infrequently
so maintaining a local copy shouldn't be too burdensome.

cgf

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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Achim Gratz]

Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] writes:
> As far as they can tell, there is no such an installation option that
> tells to install "everything from the download directory".  What they
> do is that they run setup.exe to manually check everything from the available
> packages that they want to have installed on a PC, then they follow the option
> to download any left-over package dependencies, from which step setup.exe takes
> control and downloads / installs the selections.

There is an option for setup.exe to install a complete category.  To
make use of that you need to write a new setup.ini so that the packages
you've selected are members of that particular group.

> Now, they want to replay the setup unattended with using only those downloaded
> packages again, on any other new PC, without going through the selection process
> again, so basically to install everything that setup.exe has already
> _downloaded_ to a certain directory when run manually (where all the
> dependencies have already been satisfied, so the set is self-sufficient).

They may say that they want this, but believe me that they actually
don't.  There's always some machines that will need a different
selection of packages, if not initially then somewhere down the road.

> How / Whether can they do such an install?

If you really want to clone an existing installation, then copy over
/etc/setup/installed.db into the new installation root and do a
reinstall (there's no command line option for that).  Alternatively, set
all the versions in installed.db to zero and then let setup.exe do an
"update", which is the default.


Regards,
Achim.
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RE: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

>   genini --recursive x86 > x86/setup.ini

That's an interesting piece of information, thanks!
Where can I get "genini" or "upset" from?

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI


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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Larry Hall (Cygwin)]

On 11/4/2013 2:11 PM, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] wrote:
>> Alternatively, you can grab the sources for setup and add an option
> to do what you want the way you want it.
>
> Well, that's a trivial option with open source, of course.  But also
> it means to maintain a branch of our own setup.exe, which is the
> least favorable of all.

That's the glass half-full view of it. ;-)

Assuming what you come up with is not just specific to your needs, I
see no reason the new option couldn't be included into setup's sources.
After all, I believe that's the ideal option that you were hoping for
(but already knew didn't really exist) when you asked the question.

-- 
Larry

_____________________________________________________________________

A: Yes.
 > Q: Are you sure?
 >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
 >>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?

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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Larry Hall (Cygwin)]

On 11/4/2013 2:04 PM, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] wrote:
>> Are you saying this won't work?
>> Or do you just not like it?
>
> A little bit of both, actually.  Windows CMD.EXE has an 8K limit on the command line
> length, AFAICT.  Even if that was not exceeded first time the package list
> was created, it may easily get there on a complete re-run of the install procedure
> (beginning with the manual package selection).  The worst part is that it may
> fail silently without setup even noticing until after the system is placed
> into production (and failing because of the missing packages).

OK, you certainly don't have to accept any alternative suggested.  But it
does sound to me like you're adding additional requirements that you didn't
previously state.  In other words, if using "setup*.exe" once manually to
populate a download directory (or simply creating a package mirror) is
enough to get you everything you need, you can certainly verify that it's
possible to install from that directory using the script you've created.
That should be all you need for at least one iteration of your unattended
installs.  If you plan to alter this process or the download directory on
a regular basis, then certainly there is some overhead in verifying the
script still works as you intend.  No argument here.

-- 
Larry

_____________________________________________________________________

A: Yes.
 > Q: Are you sure?
 >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
 >>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?

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RE: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> Alternatively, you can grab the sources for setup and add an option
to do what you want the way you want it.

Well, that's a trivial option with open source, of course.  But also
it means to maintain a branch of our own setup.exe, which is the
least favorable of all.

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI

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RE: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> Are you saying this won't work?
> Or do you just not like it?

A little bit of both, actually.  Windows CMD.EXE has an 8K limit on the command line
length, AFAICT.  Even if that was not exceeded first time the package list
was created, it may easily get there on a complete re-run of the install procedure
(beginning with the manual package selection).  The worst part is that it may
fail silently without setup even noticing until after the system is placed
into production (and failing because of the missing packages).

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI

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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[marco atzeri]

Il 11/4/2013 7:03 PM, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] ha scritto:
>> Just make a list from that as part of your install script.
>
> That is the problem, right there.  I counted some 150 directories,
> many of which contain 10+ packages, easily.  A manageable install
> command would have looked like "setup.exe -L directory -a" to
> get and install everything it could have found under that directory,
> rather than a command that spans two or more screen-fulls to list all
> those packages.
>
> Any other alternative, please?
>
> Anton Lavrentiev
> Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI
>

never tested, but you could use
   -C --categories

currently we have less than 30 official categories and they
very seldom change.

Of course you need to create the setup.ini from your tree,
with genini or upset, something like

  genini --recursive x86 > x86/setup.ini

Regards
Marco


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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Larry Hall (Cygwin)]

On 11/4/2013 1:03 PM, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] wrote:
>> Just make a list from that as part of your install script.
>
> That is the problem, right there.  I counted some 150 directories,
> many of which contain 10+ packages, easily.  A manageable install
> command would have looked like "setup.exe -L directory -a" to
> get and install everything it could have found under that directory,
> rather than a command that spans two or more screen-fulls to list all
> those packages.

I'm still not sure what you find so objectionable about this.  Are you
saying this won't work?  Or do you just not like it?

> Any other alternative, please?

As Eric points out, you don't really have to list all the packages,
just the dependencies.  So if you don't like the number of overall
packages to list, you can cut that down to a more reasonable number
by specifying only the top-level ones.  But that does require more
work to figure that out (though I'm assuming this happens once or
rarely, if this is really just an unattended install).  That's why
I suggested the alternative of just listing all the packages in the
download directory.  It's brute force but it's easy to do.

Alternatively, you can grab the sources for setup and add an option
to do what you want the way you want it.

-- 
Larry

_____________________________________________________________________

A: Yes.
 > Q: Are you sure?
 >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
 >>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?

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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Christopher Faylor]

On Mon, Nov 04, 2013 at 06:27:48PM +0000, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] wrote:
>> I have an install script for Cygwin. It's not offline
>
>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).
>
From the replies I've got so far, I beginning to think it's close to impossible
>without having to list (all) the packages...

I don't understand your objection to generating a script which lists all
of the packages that you want to install.  Obviously you wouldn't expect
the user to do that.  You'd just create a .bat file to do this.

Alternately, maybe you could get away with just changing all of the
"requires: " in setup.ini for the packages that you are interested in to
"base".

This is not an insurmountable problem.  It just takes some scripting.

cgf

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RE: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> I have an install script for Cygwin. It's not offline

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).

From the replies I've got so far, I beginning to think it's close to impossible
without having to list (all) the packages...

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI


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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Eric Lilja]

On 2013-11-04 19:03, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] wrote:
>> Just make a list from that as part of your install script.
>
> That is the problem, right there.  I counted some 150 directories,
> many of which contain 10+ packages, easily.  A manageable install
> command would have looked like "setup.exe -L directory -a" to
> get and install everything it could have found under that directory,
> rather than a command that spans two or more screen-fulls to list all
> those packages.
>

I have an install script for cygwin. It's not offline like what you're 
after, but I don't have to specify all packages. Only the ones I want, 
which are not included in the base install, the installer will add
needed dependencies automatically. My install script lists
14 packages, the resulting installation has 129.



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RE: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> Just make a list from that as part of your install script.

That is the problem, right there.  I counted some 150 directories,
many of which contain 10+ packages, easily.  A manageable install
command would have looked like "setup.exe -L directory -a" to
get and install everything it could have found under that directory,
rather than a command that spans two or more screen-fulls to list all
those packages.

Any other alternative, please?

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI


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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Larry Hall (Cygwin)]

On 11/4/2013 12:22 PM, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] wrote:
>> Though I haven't experimented with this myself, I'd recommend looking at
>> using "setup*.exe" on the command line and listing the packages to install
>> there.
>
> Thanks.  But I P.S.'d about that option as undesirable -- as it requires to
> maintain quite a long list of packages, all listed individually...

Why do you need to maintain a list?  You have the download directory, right?
Just make a list from that as part of your install script.

There are other, more esoteric ways to get "setup*.exe" to install a list
of packages but, in the end, it still requires a list of packages to know
what you want to install.  So I don't see an advantage in these other
alternatives.

-- 
Larry

_____________________________________________________________________

A: Yes.
 > Q: Are you sure?
 >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
 >>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?

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RE: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

> Though I haven't experimented with this myself, I'd recommend looking at
> using "setup*.exe" on the command line and listing the packages to install
> there.

Thanks.  But I P.S.'d about that option as undesirable -- as it requires to
maintain quite a long list of packages, all listed individually...

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI


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Re: Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Larry Hall (Cygwin)]

On 11/4/2013 11:22 AM, Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I am trying to help my site's Systems team to straighten up CYGWIN
> installation process, which they will need to perform to build new
> PCs, and I have volunteered to ask on their behalf here..
>
> As far as they can tell, there is no such an installation option that
> tells to install "everything from the download directory".  What they
> do is that they run setup.exe to manually check everything from the available
> packages that they want to have installed on a PC, then they follow the option
> to download any left-over package dependencies, from which step setup.exe takes
> control and downloads / installs the selections.
>
> Now, they want to replay the setup unattended with using only those downloaded
> packages again, on any other new PC, without going through the selection process
> again, so basically to install everything that setup.exe has already
> _downloaded_ to a certain directory when run manually (where all the
> dependencies have already been satisfied, so the set is self-sufficient).
>
> How / Whether can they do such an install?

Though I haven't experimented with this myself, I'd recommend looking at
using "setup*.exe" on the command line and listing the packages to install
there.

-- 
Larry

_____________________________________________________________________

A: Yes.
 > Q: Are you sure?
 >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
 >>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?

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Seeking a suggestion for unattended mass install procedure

[Lavrentiev, Anton (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C]]

Hello All,

I am trying to help my site's Systems team to straighten up CYGWIN
installation process, which they will need to perform to build new
PCs, and I have volunteered to ask on their behalf here..

As far as they can tell, there is no such an installation option that
tells to install "everything from the download directory".  What they
do is that they run setup.exe to manually check everything from the available
packages that they want to have installed on a PC, then they follow the option
to download any left-over package dependencies, from which step setup.exe takes
control and downloads / installs the selections.

Now, they want to replay the setup unattended with using only those downloaded
packages again, on any other new PC, without going through the selection process
again, so basically to install everything that setup.exe has already
_downloaded_ to a certain directory when run manually (where all the
dependencies have already been satisfied, so the set is self-sufficient).

How / Whether can they do such an install?

Thanks,

Anton Lavrentiev
Contractor NIH/NLM/NCBI

P.S. There is an option for setup.exe to list all wanted packages,
but the actual list appears to be very long, so they want to avoid
using it, if possible.


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