Cygwin Setup - Choose Best Mirror Automatically for Automated / Silent Installs

[Brian Inglis]

On 2016-11-17 23:10, OwN-3m-All wrote:
> See, this happens with the mirror I've provided in the setup (only
> sometimes... sometimes it works):
>
> https://s17.postimg.org/6xuvfaljz/setup_issue.png
>
> The setup log only contains this:
>
> Starting cygwin install, version 2.876
> User has backup/restore rights
> io_stream_cygfile: fopen(/etc/setup/setup.rc) failed 2 No such file or directory
> Current Directory: C:\test\cygTemp
> Could not open service McShield for query, start and stop. McAfee may
> not be installed, or we don't have access.
> root: C:\test system
> Selected local directory: C:\test\cygTemp
> net: Direct
>
> How do I troubleshoot this further, and it is truly caused by the
> mirror? It appears to be because I haven't gotten it to crash yet
> running it manually and using a mirror entry from the list it
> displays to me.

Check the permissions on the directory allow SYSTEM and
Administrators and your userid rwx access or full control.
Don't just use ls -l, use getfacl and icacls to be sure.

What Windows version; is it an insider, Education or Enterprise
build?
These all can have customizations that switch retail features
off, add unusual features and capabilities for extra control,
or run services that are unusual on retail systems.
Check particularly for any "security" or anti-* products:
these may be on the BLODA and cause random failures: see
https://cygwin.com/faq/faq.html#faq.using.bloda
The major retail products are just *BAD*!

You can still run setup in a script with stdout and stderr
redirection to your own log in case it produces some useful text
output when it crashes.

Install and try:
https://github.com/PhilipDaniels/dotfiles/blob/master/cygwin_mirror_test.pl
to find the lowest latency network mirror offering the fastest
downloads, but remember that doesn't tell you anything about update
frequency, availability, reliability, stability.

If I find my current mirror unavailable, I wait and hour and retry.
If it's still not working, I rerun the mirror test and switch.
I have to do this about every three months, probably because some
other mirrored distro has just come out with major updates that
everyone has to have right away! ;^>
It's worth while to set a quarterly or monthly reminder to recheck
your mirrors, or schedule a job that does so every few weeks, at
about the time and on the weekday you normally run setup.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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