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From: Mark Ziesemer <online AT mark DOT ziesemer DOT com>
Subject: Cygwin multi-user installation issues
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2012 04:12:32 +0000 (UTC)
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I just wanted to make those concerned aware of some issues I faced while
prepping Cygwin for use on a multi-user installation, and some work-arounds that
I came up with.  Hopefully, these issues could be considered and incorporated
into the Cygwin project - resulting in something better than using the
work-arounds that I provided.

Please pardon me for not repeating all the details here.  Everything is detailed
in a personal blog post that I created at
http://blogger.ziesemer.com/2012/02/cygwin-multi-user-installation.html.  All
Cygwin versions are current as of this writing.

To summarize:

- Cygwin installs all files owned as the installing-user, with no access control
entry for the "Administrators" group.  This causes issues if multiple users try
to use Cygwin, or if one user installs it for another end-user - even if
everyone involved is an Administrator (has an account in Windows' Administrators
group).  (This functionality might make sense if "Just Me" was chosen for the
"Install For" option during installation, but this was not the case.)

- There should be a way to run mkpasswd and mkgroup automatically - or at least,
by customizing the installation to handle this for new users.  However, there
doesn't seem to be a great way to hook into /etc/profile (where this warning is
generated) without editing the script itself and causing it to be skipped in any
future updates.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


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