cygwin-portable-installer

1. What is it?
2. Features
3. Installation
   1. Customizing the installer
4. Update
5. License

What is it?

cygwin-portable-installer is a self-containing Windows batch file to perform an unattended installation of a portable Cygwin environment.

The installer has been implemented as a Batch script and not PowerShell script because in some corporate environments execution of PowerShell scripts is disabled for non-administrative users via group policies.

See also:

1. https://github.com/evandrocoan/MyLinuxSettings
2. https://github.com/MachinaCore/CygwinPortable
3. https://github.com/vegardit/cygwin-portable-installer

Features

• portable: you can e.g. install it on an USB sticks and use the same configuration on different computers
• 256-color multi-tabbed shell: ConEmu is pre-configured as terminal by default. Alternatively you can choose to use the single tabbed Mintty terminal.
• command-line package installer: apt-cyg package manager will be automatically installed (opt-out via config parameter is possible)
• adaptive Bash prompt: bash-funk will be automatically installed (opt-out via config parameter is possible)
• additional tools (opt-out via config parameter is possible):
  • Ansible: deployment automation tool
  • AWS CLI: AWS cloud commandline tool
  • Node.js: JavaScript runtime
  • testssl.sh: command line tool to check SSL/TLS configurations of servers

Installation

1. Get a copy of the installer using one of these ways:

   • Using old-school Copy & Paste:
     1. Create a local empty directory where Cygwin shall be installed, e.g. C:\apps\cygwin-portable
     2. Download the cygwin-portable-installer.cmd file into that directory.
   • Using Git:
     1. Clone the project into a local directory, e.g.

        git clone https://github.com/vegardit/cygwin-portable-installer --single-branch --branch master --depth 1 C:\apps\cygwin-portable

2. (Optional) Open the file cygwin-portable-installer.cmd in a text editor and adjust the configuration variables to e.g. set an HTTP Proxy, change the set of pre-installed Cygwin packages, select the terminal (ConEmu or Mintty), etc.

3. Execute the cygwin-portable-installer.cmd. This will automatically:

   1. download the 32 or 64bit Cygwin setup.exe depending on your OS
   2. install Cygwin with the pre-selected set of packages
   3. install the ConEmu tabbed terminal
   4. create an init scripts that will keep the installation portable
   5. install the apt-cyg command-line package manager
   6. install the bash-funk Bash toolbox with it's adaptive Bash prompt
   7. install Ansible
   8. install AWS CLI
   9. install Node.js
   10. install testssl.sh

4. Now you can launch your portable Cygwin environment using the newly created cygwin-portable.cmd batch file.

Customizing the installer

You can customize the installer by either directly modifying the default settings in the cygwin-portable-installer.cmd file, or by placing a separate file called cygwin-portable-installer-config.cmd next where some or all of these settings are overwritten.

These settings are currently available:

:: ############################################################################################################
:: CONFIG CUSTOMIZATION START
:: You can customize the following variables to your needs before running the batch file
:: ############################################################################################################

:: Only generate the configuration files, do not install anything
:: It can also be enabled by the command line with the argument -d or --dry-run
set "DRY_RUN_MODE="
:: set "DRY_RUN_MODE=yes"

:: set proxy if required (unfortunately Cygwin setup.exe does not have commandline options to specify proxy user credentials)
set PROXY_HOST=
set PROXY_PORT=8080

:: change the URL to the closest mirror https://cygwin.com/mirrors.html
set CYGWIN_MIRROR=http://cygwin.mirror.constant.com/

:: if set to yes, then, a different user than your current computer account will be created.
:: if set to no, then, you need to set CYGWIN_USERNAME to your current computer user name.
set CREATE_ROOT_USER=no

:: choose a user name under Cygwin
set CYGWIN_USERNAME=root
if not "%CREATE_ROOT_USER%"=="yes" set "CYGWIN_USERNAME=%USERNAME%"

:: one of: auto,64,32 - specifies if 32 or 64 bit version should be installed or automatically detected based on current OS architecture
set CYGWIN_ARCH=auto
set INSTALL_IMPROVED_USER_SETTINGS=yes

:: select the packages to be installed automatically via apt-cyg
set CYGWIN_PACKAGES=bash-completion,bc,curl,expect,git,git-svn,gnupg,inetutils,lz4,mc,nc,openssh,openssl,perl,psmisc,python3,pv,rsync,python2,python2-pip,python3-pip,python2-devel,python3-devel,screen,subversion,unzip,vim,wget,zip,zstd,graphviz,unison2.51,make,gcc-g++,ncdu,gdb,tree

:: if set to 'yes' the local package cache created by cygwin setup will be deleted after installation/update
set DELETE_CYGWIN_PACKAGE_CACHE=no

:: if set to 'yes' the apt-cyg command line package manager (https://github.com/kou1okada/apt-cyg) will be installed automatically
set INSTALL_APT_CYG=yes

:: if set to 'yes' the bash-funk adaptive Bash prompt (https://github.com/vegardit/bash-funk) will be installed automatically
set INSTALL_BASH_FUNK=no

:: if set to 'yes' Node.js (https://nodejs.org/) will be installed automatically
set INSTALL_NODEJS=yes
:: Use of the folder names found here https://nodejs.org/dist/ as version name.
set NODEJS_VERSION=latest-v12.x
:: one of: auto,64,32 - specifies if 32 or 64 bit version should be installed or automatically detected based on current OS architecture
set NODEJS_ARCH=auto

:: if set to 'yes' Ansible (https://github.com/ansible/ansible) will be installed automatically
set INSTALL_ANSIBLE=no
set ANSIBLE_GIT_BRANCH=stable-2.9

:: if set to 'yes' AWS CLI (https://github.com/aws/aws-cli) will be installed automatically
set INSTALL_AWS_CLI=no

:: if set to 'yes' SSH Memory Keys Passphrase Cache (https://github.com/cuviper/ssh-pageant) will be installed automatically
set INSTALL_PAGEANT=no

:: https://georgik.rocks/how-to-fix-incorrect-cygwin-permission-inwindows-7/
set DISABLE_WINDOWS_ACL_HANDLING=no

:: if set to 'yes' testssl.sh (https://testssl.sh/) will be installed automatically
set INSTALL_TESTSSL_SH=yes
:: name of the GIT branch to install from, see https://github.com/drwetter/testssl.sh/
set TESTSSL_GIT_BRANCH=v2.9.5-8

:: use ConEmu based tabbed terminal instead of Mintty based single window terminal, see https://conemu.github.io/
set INSTALL_CONEMU=no
set CON_EMU_OPTIONS=-Title Cygwin-portable -QuitOnClose

:: add more path if required, but at the cost of runtime performance (e.g. slower forks)
set "CYGWIN_PATH=%%SystemRoot%%\system32;%%SystemRoot%%"

:: set Mintty options, see https://cdn.rawgit.com/mintty/mintty/master/docs/mintty.1.html#CONFIGURATION
:: set MINTTY_OPTIONS=--Title Cygwin-portable ^
::   -o Columns=160 ^
::   -o Rows=50 ^
::   -o BellType=0 ^
::   -o ClicksPlaceCursor=yes ^
::   -o CursorBlinks=yes ^
::   -o CursorColour=96,96,255 ^
::   -o CursorType=Block ^
::   -o CopyOnSelect=yes ^
::   -o RightClickAction=Paste ^
::   -o Font="Courier New" ^
::   -o FontHeight=10 ^
::   -o FontSmoothing=None ^
::   -o ScrollbackLines=10000 ^
::   -o Transparency=off ^
::   -o Term=xterm-256color ^
::   -o Charset=UTF-8 ^
::   -o Locale=C

:: ############################################################################################################
:: CONFIG CUSTOMIZATION END
:: ############################################################################################################

Updating your installation

To update installed Cygwin packages execute the generated cygwin-portable-updater.cmd file.

Reparing your installation

After cloning this repository, you can repair the Cygwin installation with corrupted all files.

To fix it, just run the installer as show bellow on License.

1. After that, select View -> Category
   
2. Then, hit the sync sign until it shows Reinstall
   
3. Now, hit the next button until you finish the Cygwin wizard assistant.

License

All files are released by this repository with a git clone are under the Apache License 2.0.

The files downloaded by the Cygwin installer without their sources to save space.

1. You can find their sources by running the Cygwin installer and selecting to download the sources.

   start .\setup-x86.exe --no-admin --delete-orphans --download --force-current --no-shortcuts

2. 

Can I bundle Cygwin with my product for free?

Starting with Cygwin version 2.5.2, which is LGPL licensed, yes, albeit it's not recommended for interoperability reasons.

Cygwin versions prior to 2.5.2 were GPL licensed. If you choose to distribute an older cygwin1.dll, you must be willing to distribute the exact source code used to build that copy of cygwin1.dll as per the terms of the GPL. If you ship applications that link with older cygwin1.dll, you must provide those applications' source code under a GPL-compatible license. https://www.cygwin.com/faq.html https://cygwin.com/licensing.html

All files are released under the Apache License 2.0.