Cygwin Time Machine

[Peter A. Castro]

I'm probably going to regret this :)

For some time, I've been keeping a private mirror of Cygwin for my own
personal use. Unlike other mirrors, I've been keeping all of the
versions of all packages, along with a revision of setup.ini to go with
it.

Now, call me crazy (and I know you already do :), but since Cygwin Setup
uses nothing more than setup.ini and the release/ directory, I thought:
"why not provide a historical representation of Cygwin's package from
which you can actually install from"? Think of it as a time machine for
going back to a previous "version" of Cygwin. And so, that's what I did.

See http://www.fruitbat.org/Cygwin/index.html#cygwincirca

This provides the details of how it works. Basically, it's a bunch of
timestamp based URLs which allow you to install a specific snapshot of
Cygwin.

So, why am I doing this? Well, I actually have need of this for work.
It saved me much time and effort, because I could install additional
packages at the same level of what we already had installed, thus
introducing less instability into our environments, and it gives us a
chance to gradually upgrade. It's a cop-out, I know, and I can already
see people tut-tut'ing at this, but on the plus side, it's kind of neat
to see a form of historical review of Cygwin packages. My mirroring is
done automatically each day, and the time machine is also automatically
regenerated along with it to keep it up to date.

I really only did this for my work, but thought perhaps someone else
might find it useful or interesting. Unfortinately, it only goes back to
April of 2002, though I actually have package versions going back
further, but not the setup.ini to go with them. Once our work has
migrated to a more current Cygwin, I might remove this, but for now it's
useful to me.

[Larry Hall]

Post by Peter A. Castro
I'm probably going to regret this :)
For some time, I've been keeping a private mirror of Cygwin for my own
personal use. Unlike other mirrors, I've been keeping all of the
versions of all packages, along with a revision of setup.ini to go with
it.
Now, call me crazy (and I know you already do :), but since Cygwin Setup
"why not provide a historical representation of Cygwin's package from
which you can actually install from"? Think of it as a time machine for
going back to a previous "version" of Cygwin. And so, that's what I did.
See http://www.fruitbat.org/Cygwin/index.html#cygwincirca
This provides the details of how it works. Basically, it's a bunch of
timestamp based URLs which allow you to install a specific snapshot of
Cygwin.
So, why am I doing this? Well, I actually have need of this for work.
It saved me much time and effort, because I could install additional
packages at the same level of what we already had installed, thus
introducing less instability into our environments, and it gives us a
chance to gradually upgrade. It's a cop-out, I know, and I can already
see people tut-tut'ing at this, but on the plus side, it's kind of neat
to see a form of historical review of Cygwin packages. My mirroring is
done automatically each day, and the time machine is also automatically
regenerated along with it to keep it up to date.
I really only did this for my work, but thought perhaps someone else
might find it useful or interesting. Unfortinately, it only goes back to
April of 2002, though I actually have package versions going back
further, but not the setup.ini to go with them. Once our work has
migrated to a more current Cygwin, I might remove this, but for now it's
useful to me.

You forgot to mention the most important thing in your post. Anybody who
visits and uses your archive should contact you directly for any support
issues they have with using the software. This list can't entertain
questions or help solve problems for those using software from your
archive. You do have wording something like this at your web page but
you know no one ever reads documentation. ;-)

Good luck!


--
Larry Hall http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc. [phone] - RFK Office
838 Washington Street [phone] - FAX
Holliston, MA 01746

[Peter A. Castro]

Post by Larry Hall

Post by Peter A. Castro
I'm probably going to regret this :)
For some time, I've been keeping a private mirror of Cygwin for my own
personal use. Unlike other mirrors, I've been keeping all of the
versions of all packages, along with a revision of setup.ini to go with
it.
Now, call me crazy (and I know you already do :), but since Cygwin Setup
"why not provide a historical representation of Cygwin's package from
which you can actually install from"? Think of it as a time machine for
going back to a previous "version" of Cygwin. And so, that's what I did.
See http://www.fruitbat.org/Cygwin/index.html#cygwincirca
This provides the details of how it works. Basically, it's a bunch of
timestamp based URLs which allow you to install a specific snapshot of
Cygwin.
So, why am I doing this? Well, I actually have need of this for work.
It saved me much time and effort, because I could install additional
packages at the same level of what we already had installed, thus
introducing less instability into our environments, and it gives us a
chance to gradually upgrade. It's a cop-out, I know, and I can already
see people tut-tut'ing at this, but on the plus side, it's kind of neat
to see a form of historical review of Cygwin packages. My mirroring is
done automatically each day, and the time machine is also automatically
regenerated along with it to keep it up to date.
I really only did this for my work, but thought perhaps someone else
might find it useful or interesting. Unfortinately, it only goes back to
April of 2002, though I actually have package versions going back
further, but not the setup.ini to go with them. Once our work has
migrated to a more current Cygwin, I might remove this, but for now it's
useful to me.

You forgot to mention the most important thing in your post. Anybody who
visits and uses your archive should contact you directly for any support
issues they have with using the software. This list can't entertain

I'm not advocating anyone post questions about problems with older
versions. In fact, I have advocated, on this list, that people should be
at current levels and even try the snapshots before posting to the list.
If they do come to me with problems, I'd tell them to either migrate
through the revisions until either their problem went away, or they got
up to current levels, at which point, they would very likely be using
this list to address their problems. :)

Post by Larry Hall
questions or help solve problems for those using software from your
archive. You do have wording something like this at your web page but
you know no one ever reads documentation. ;-)

Think of it more like a library, with several copies of various books for
people to read. Just the same, I've updated the webpage with more verbage
on the subject of what the do incase of problems.

Post by Larry Hall
Good luck!

Thanks. I'm just hoping I don't live to regret this. :)

Post by Larry Hall
--
Larry Hall http://www.rfk.com

[Charles Wilson]

Actually, I think this is a neat idea. I tried to do something like it
for personal use about 18 months ago -- I wanted a one-time snapshot of
the cygwin-1.3.x baseline just prior to the 1.5.x transition.

But I waited too long (e.g. after packages which required 1.5.x had
"polluted" the server), and couldn't untangle "what was old/what was
new" well enough for my taste. So I gave up.

Your mechanism is much better. I, too, hope you don't regret it. :-)

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Charles Wilson
Actually, I think this is a neat idea. I tried to do something like it
for personal use about 18 months ago -- I wanted a one-time snapshot of
the cygwin-1.3.x baseline just prior to the 1.5.x transition.
But I waited too long (e.g. after packages which required 1.5.x had
"polluted" the server), and couldn't untangle "what was old/what was
new" well enough for my taste. So I gave up.
Your mechanism is much better. I, too, hope you don't regret it. :-)

While I think it is a nifty idea too (I actually used this yesterday), I
suspect that we'll all have some heartburn over this as people stumble
onto it, try to "update" their distro to older versions and end up with
bloody stumps where their feet used to be.

However, because I'm a masochist, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good
idea to advertise this as "cygwin news" on the front page of
http://cygwin.com/.

Also, (oh boy, what fun!) it would be nice if snapshots were archived, too.

cgf

[Peter A. Castro]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Charles Wilson
Actually, I think this is a neat idea. I tried to do something like it
for personal use about 18 months ago -- I wanted a one-time snapshot of
the cygwin-1.3.x baseline just prior to the 1.5.x transition.
But I waited too long (e.g. after packages which required 1.5.x had
"polluted" the server), and couldn't untangle "what was old/what was
new" well enough for my taste. So I gave up.
Your mechanism is much better. I, too, hope you don't regret it. :-)

While I think it is a nifty idea too (I actually used this yesterday), I
suspect that we'll all have some heartburn over this as people stumble
onto it, try to "update" their distro to older versions and end up with
bloody stumps where their feet used to be.

Well, I do warn people not taunting Happy-Fun Ball :)

Seriously, the "time machine" should be used prudently. I am beefing up
the doc (which no-one ever reads, right? :) to try and head off as many
problems as possible. Knowledge is power.

And, I humbly offer free antacids and bandages to everyone on the list
who suffers at the hands (feet?) of the time machine.

Post by Christopher Faylor
However, because I'm a masochist, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good
idea to advertise this as "cygwin news" on the front page of
http://cygwin.com/.

Gosh, Chris, I'm flattered you'd consider it news worthy (well,
flattered, shocked, amazed and confused...no, wait, "confused" is my
normal state of being :). Obviously it's up to you all.

Post by Christopher Faylor
Also, (oh boy, what fun!) it would be nice if snapshots were archived, too.

Hmm... I think I can do that too. Lemme look into it.

Post by Christopher Faylor
cgf

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Christopher Faylor
However, because I'm a masochist, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a
good idea to advertise this as "cygwin news" on the front page of
http://cygwin.com/.

Gosh, Chris, I'm flattered you'd consider it news worthy (well,
flattered, shocked, amazed and confused...no, wait, "confused" is my
normal state of being :). Obviously it's up to you all.

This is actually up to you. If you think it's a good idea, then feel
free to submit an article using the link at http://cygwin.com/ .

I have no problems with people using whatever version they want as far
as cygwin is concerned. They just have to understand that we're not
supporting old versions here. That policy, aside from being just
deliciously mean, is a pragmatic decision whose basis should be
fairly obvious.

It helps tremendously that someone like you is willing to behave
responsibly, think about the problems with offering services like this,
and make adjustments to deal with them so that users will be aware of
issues and hopefully will impact on us minimally here.

I think you're showing a true open source spirit in providing this
service -- particularly since I know you understand the risks and the
amount of work involved.

cgf

[Peter A. Castro]

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Peter A. Castro wrote:

Sorry for dredging this up, but just wanted to update on a few things.

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Charles Wilson
Actually, I think this is a neat idea. I tried to do something like it
for personal use about 18 months ago -- I wanted a one-time snapshot of
the cygwin-1.3.x baseline just prior to the 1.5.x transition.
But I waited too long (e.g. after packages which required 1.5.x had
"polluted" the server), and couldn't untangle "what was old/what was
new" well enough for my taste. So I gave up.
Your mechanism is much better. I, too, hope you don't regret it. :-)

While I think it is a nifty idea too (I actually used this yesterday), I
suspect that we'll all have some heartburn over this as people stumble
onto it, try to "update" their distro to older versions and end up with
bloody stumps where their feet used to be.

Well, I do warn people not taunting Happy-Fun Ball :)

^^^^^^^^^^^^
Geez... that should be "not to taunt". Bad fingers! No biscuit! :)

Post by Peter A. Castro
Seriously, the "time machine" should be used prudently. I am beefing up
the doc (which no-one ever reads, right? :) to try and head off as many
problems as possible. Knowledge is power.

As promised, I've update the time machine doc with bigger, bolder,
brighter (now with Chemical-C!) words of warning. Hopefully this will
help stave off newbie questions from hitting the list.

Post by Peter A. Castro
And, I humbly offer free antacids and bandages to everyone on the list
who suffers at the hands (feet?) of the time machine.

Post by Christopher Faylor
However, because I'm a masochist, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good
idea to advertise this as "cygwin news" on the front page of
http://cygwin.com/.

Gosh, Chris, I'm flattered you'd consider it news worthy (well,
flattered, shocked, amazed and confused...no, wait, "confused" is my
normal state of being :). Obviously it's up to you all.

It's been a few weeks, and nothing bad has happened. I see several
people have made use of the time machine and it hasn't been much of a
strain on my servers at all, so I will continue to maintain the time
machine as a service to the community.

I guess I would like to make this official as "cygwin news", but I'm not
quite sure what to say. I'll ponder that and submit something later.

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Christopher Faylor
Also, (oh boy, what fun!) it would be nice if snapshots were archived, too.

Hmm... I think I can do that too. Lemme look into it.

I have looked into this and I am now archiving snapshots, as of 01/25/2005.
All snapshot archives will be kept here:
ftp://www.fruitbat.org/ftp/pub/cygwin/snapshots/

This took a little more effort than I was expecting, because the
robots.txt file prevents me from just grabbing them via wget (if there's
a way to make wget ignore robots.txt, I'd love to know it!), so I ended
up having to extract href's from index.html and pull everything that way.
As long as the link format in index.html doesn't change too much, this
will continue to work fairly well.

I plan to make them available through the time machine, but for now, they
are available via ftp. If people have kept earlier snapshots and would
be willing to send them to me (or provide a link for me to pull them), I
will add them to the collection.

Thanks!

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Christopher Faylor
cgf

[Peter A. Castro]

Post by Charles Wilson
Actually, I think this is a neat idea. I tried to do something like it
for personal use about 18 months ago -- I wanted a one-time snapshot of
the cygwin-1.3.x baseline just prior to the 1.5.x transition.
But I waited too long (e.g. after packages which required 1.5.x had
"polluted" the server), and couldn't untangle "what was old/what was
new" well enough for my taste. So I gave up.
Your mechanism is much better. I, too, hope you don't regret it. :-)

Thanks Chuck! We'll see about the "regret" part :) Feel free to use it.

[Jon A. Lambert]

Post by Peter A. Castro
might find it useful or interesting. Unfortinately, it only goes
back to April of 2002, though I actually have package versions going
back further, but not the setup.ini to go with them.

You didn't mention the b20/20.1 release. If you and anyone doesn't have it
and wants it for some odd reason...

ftp://jlsysinc.gotdns.com/pub/cygwin-b20/

Access might be slow and flaky.

--
J. Lambert

[Larry Hall]

Post by Peter A. Castro
might find it useful or interesting. Unfortinately, it only goes
back to April of 2002, though I actually have package versions going
back further, but not the setup.ini to go with them.

You didn't mention the b20/20.1 release. If you and anyone doesn't have it and wants it for some odd reason...
ftp://jlsysinc.gotdns.com/pub/cygwin-b20/
Access might be slow and flaky.

Almost time for me to go dig up my zip disks with B19 and B18 as well as
my boatload of diskettes with b17, b16, and b14. Sorry, I didn't save
b13 or b12. Someone else will have to recoup those and continue the
march into the 'b' single digits. ;-)

Larry

Trivia alert: Who else remembers why there was no b15 release?

[Peter A. Castro]

Post by Larry Hall

Post by Peter A. Castro
might find it useful or interesting. Unfortinately, it only goes
back to April of 2002, though I actually have package versions going
back further, but not the setup.ini to go with them.

You didn't mention the b20/20.1 release. If you and anyone doesn't have it and wants it for some odd reason...
ftp://jlsysinc.gotdns.com/pub/cygwin-b20/
Access might be slow and flaky.

Almost time for me to go dig up my zip disks with B19 and B18 as well as
my boatload of diskettes with b17, b16, and b14. Sorry, I didn't save
b13 or b12. Someone else will have to recoup those and continue the
march into the 'b' single digits. ;-)

If you have 'em, please do. I'd love to put these up as well. It'll be
a real "blast from the past" :)

Post by Larry Hall
Larry
Trivia alert: Who else remembers why there was no b15 release?

[Peter A. Castro]

Post by Jon A. Lambert

Post by Peter A. Castro
might find it useful or interesting. Unfortinately, it only goes
back to April of 2002, though I actually have package versions going
back further, but not the setup.ini to go with them.

You didn't mention the b20/20.1 release. If you and anyone doesn't have it
and wants it for some odd reason...

Hmm... How complete is it? Did you pull all the source packages as well?
Did you keep the setup.ini with it? What about the setup.exe itself?

Post by Jon A. Lambert
ftp://jlsysinc.gotdns.com/pub/cygwin-b20/
Access might be slow and flaky.

Yep, I can't seem to get there right now. I'll try again later.

Post by Jon A. Lambert
--
J. Lambert

[Jon A. Lambert]

This post might be inappropriate. Click to display it.

[Warren Young]

Post by Peter A. Castro
Hmm... How complete is it? Did you pull all the source packages as well?
Did you keep the setup.ini with it? What about the setup.exe itself?

I don't remember when setup.exe came into being, but it was after b20.
At that time, you had the option if downloading one of two different
single-file self-extracting archives (full.exe and user.exe) that would
explode into a Cygwin tree for you. Every time you updated Cygwin,
you'd have to download the whole tree again.

[Peter A. Castro]

Post by Warren Young

Post by Peter A. Castro
Hmm... How complete is it? Did you pull all the source packages as well?
Did you keep the setup.ini with it? What about the setup.exe itself?

I don't remember when setup.exe came into being, but it was after b20.
At that time, you had the option if downloading one of two different
single-file self-extracting archives (full.exe and user.exe) that would
explode into a Cygwin tree for you. Every time you updated Cygwin,
you'd have to download the whole tree again.

I'd still like to archive it. If you can stabalize your ftp host I'll
pull it. Alternatively, I can setup an incoming dir on my machine if
you'd prefer to push from your end.

Post by Warren Young
--
Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple

[Jon A. Lambert]

Post by Peter A. Castro
I'd still like to archive it. If you can stabalize your ftp host I'll
pull it. Alternatively, I can setup an incoming dir on my machine if
you'd prefer to push from your end.

Well three people have pulled it off in the last 10 hours and it looked like
it took them 15 to 20 minutes to get it all.

Also I found B19/19.1 too and put them in here...
ftp://jlsysinc.gotdns.com/pub/cygwin-b19/

--
J. Lambert

[Richard Campbell]

(if there's a way to make wget ignore robots.txt, I'd love to know

it!)

http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/faq.html#3.0
"3.0 How can I make GNU wget ignore a robots.txt file?

Try using:

wget -erobots=off http://your.site.here "

-Richard Campbell