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Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:59:02 -0800
Message-ID: <1c3de4741003101459x3b985da4j7b49160d60b2d4f3@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Network install of Cygwin?
From: John Sambrook <john AT common-sense DOT com>
To: cygwin <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
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> On 3/10/2010 10:09 AM, Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) [E] wrote:
> >
> >     Tim Visher sent the following at Wednesday, March 10, 2010 8:25 AM
> > >
> > >         On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 5:14 PM, John Sambrook
> > >         <PCYMTNQREAIYR>  wrote:
> > > >
> > > >             Is it possible to do a network install of the Cygwin distribution, so
> > > >             that a copy doesn't have to reside on every machine where it might be
> > > >             used?
> > > >
> > >
> > >         I'd be very interested in this as well
> >
> >     First: http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#PCYMTNQREAIYR
> >
> >     I think that it would work, especially if it is just for you.  Why don't
> >     you just try it and see?
> >
> >
> >     Things to think about:
> >        - Is this just for you or will many people use it?
> >        - mount tables.
> >        - environmental variables.
> >
>
> Overall, Barry is correct.  There's no reason you can't do this if
> you want.  That doesn't mean that it's simple or doesn't suffer
> drawbacks.  It's certainly easier to get a proper install on
> individual machines using 'setup.exe'.  And sharing a network
> "install" means that all operations will be slowed down by the
> extra network overhead, which can be significant with all the path
> translations Cygwin needs.  So you want to ask yourself what the
> motivation is for doing this and is it the best or only way for you
> to achieve that goal.  But if the question is just "Is it possible?"
> the answer is yes.  If the question is "Will 'setup.exe' allow me
> to set up the network install and all the "clients" of that install?",
> the answer is no.
>
>
> --
> Larry Hall                              http://www.rfk.com
> RFK Partners, Inc.                      (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
> 216 Dalton Rd.                          (508) 893-9889 - FAX
> Holliston, MA 01746

I'm grateful for the help with this question.

Barry, it's not just for me.  If it works well, we would have 10 - 20
people using it, possibly up to 40 over time.

Regarding mount tables, I'm assuming the issue is that the mount-table
is modified on a per-user basis.  So a single, shared-over-the-network
version isn't going to hack it.  Correct?

I also suspect that there are probably packages in a full-up
distribution that write into locations in the distribution tree.  For
example, if I fire up pdflatex, I believe it invokes (kpathsea?) to
build font-files or something along those lines.

I would guess there is also the question of where writable directories
like /tmp and /var reside.  Should I have one network-wide shared /tmp
or should each client somehow get its own?  I'd prefer the latter.

Many years ago (like, 15+), I think it was pretty common to have a
shared distribution tree with little islands of writability in it.  If memory
serves this was achieved via the automounter and some symlinks.
Those machines were running some kind of UNIX (e.g., SunOS, HPUX,
etc.) rather than a Windows OS, of course.

At any rate, I'd be grateful for any additional advice people can
offer.  I'm going to give this a shot and see what kind of issues
come up.

Sorry to not have more specific questions.

Thanks,

John Sambrook

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