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Rsync (or any other cygwin daemon) as a Windows service

Today I was asked to quickly put together a script to replicate files/directories from a central server to a number of XP clients. This would be dead simple if it was not for Windows.
The customer originally thought of robocopy/xcopy but I dont' really trust them: error reporting is kinda difficult to read and copying over cifs is slow and unreliable. So I set out to build it on top of rsync, but to do that I had to find a way to get rsync installed as a service on all the clients.

Turns out it's quite easy. I started from a clean cygwin install to which I added rsync and cygrunsrv. The latter is the native cygwin tool that can be use to run any tradition *nix daemon as a native Windows service.
Even a basic install like this will be in the order of 50MB or so which is too large for quick deployments. I then started trimming all the stuff that was not essential to the rsync service.

At the end of the trimming process I was left with a mere 10MB, which after being compressed in a nice nsis setup (source here) went down to 5MB. That should be small enough.

This is the complete list of files that I kept from the original cygwin install. I deleted all uneeded programs (like awk, groff, etc), man pages, static libraries, header files, timezones and even language translations (except a few basic ones). Please note that the rsyncd.conf was created by me with the settings needed on this specific occasion:

.
./bin
./bin/afmtodit
./bin/apropos
./bin/ash.exe
./bin/awk
./bin/bash.exe
./bin/bashbug
./bin/bzcmp
./bin/bzdiff
./bin/bzegrep
./bin/bzfgrep
./bin/bzgrep
./bin/bzless
./bin/bzmore
./bin/chem
./bin/chroot.exe
./bin/copy-user-registry-fstab
./bin/cp.exe
./bin/cygattr-1.dll
./bin/cygbz2-1.dll
./bin/cygcheck.exe
./bin/cygdrop.exe
./bin/cygform-10.dll
./bin/cygformw-10.dll
./bin/cyggcc_s-1.dll
./bin/cyghistory7.dll
./bin/cygiconv-2.dll
./bin/cygintl-8.dll
./bin/cyglsa-config
./bin/cyglsa.dll
./bin/cyglsa64.dll
./bin/cyglzma-5.dll
./bin/cygmagic-1.dll
./bin/cygmenu-10.dll
./bin/cygmenuw-10.dll
./bin/cygmp-3.dll
./bin/cygncurses++-10.dll
./bin/cygncurses++w-10.dll
./bin/cygncursesw-10.dll
./bin/cygpanel-10.dll
./bin/cygpanelw-10.dll
./bin/cygpath.exe
./bin/cygpcre-0.dll
./bin/cygpcreposix-0.dll
./bin/cygpopt-0.dll
./bin/cygreadline7.dll
./bin/cygrunsrv.exe
./bin/cygserver-config
./bin/cygsigsegv-2.dll
./bin/cygstart.exe
./bin/cygtic-10.dll
./bin/cygticw-10.dll
./bin/cygwin-console-helper.exe
./bin/cygwin1.dll
./bin/cygz.dll
./bin/df.exe
./bin/env.exe
./bin/eqn2graph
./bin/gdiffmk
./bin/gettext.sh
./bin/grap2graph
./bin/groffer
./bin/grog
./bin/gunzip
./bin/gzexe
./bin/igawk
./bin/install-info.exe.manifest
./bin/install.exe.manifest
./bin/ipck
./bin/kill.exe
./bin/ls.exe
./bin/lzcat
./bin/lzcmp
./bin/lzdiff
./bin/lzegrep
./bin/lzfgrep
./bin/lzgrep
./bin/lzless
./bin/lzma
./bin/lzmore
./bin/man2dvi
./bin/manlint
./bin/manpath
./bin/md5sum.exe
./bin/mintty.exe
./bin/mkdir.exe
./bin/mmroff
./bin/neqn
./bin/nroff
./bin/pdfroff
./bin/pdftexi2dvi
./bin/peflagsall
./bin/pic2graph
./bin/pwd.exe
./bin/rebaseall
./bin/rm.exe
./bin/roff2dvi
./bin/roff2html
./bin/roff2pdf
./bin/roff2ps
./bin/roff2text
./bin/roff2x
./bin/rsync.exe
./bin/run.exe
./bin/sh.exe
./bin/sleep.exe
./bin/stty.exe
./bin/su.exe
./bin/tail.exe
./bin/texi2dvi
./bin/texi2pdf
./bin/touch.exe
./bin/uncompress
./bin/unlzma
./bin/unxz
./bin/updatedb
./bin/users.exe
./bin/vdir.exe
./bin/wc.exe
./bin/whatis
./bin/which.exe
./bin/xzcat
./bin/xzcmp
./bin/xzdiff
./bin/xzegrep
./bin/xzfgrep
./bin/xzgrep
./bin/xzless
./bin/xzmore
./bin/zcat
./bin/zcmp
./bin/zdiff
./bin/zegrep
./bin/zfgrep
./bin/zforce
./bin/zgrep
./bin/zless
./bin/zmore
./bin/znew
./bin/[.exe
./Cygwin.bat
./Cygwin.ico
./dev
./dev/fd
./dev/mqueue
./dev/shm
./dev/stderr
./dev/stdin
./dev/stdout
./etc
./etc/alternatives
./etc/alternatives/README
./etc/bash.bashrc
./etc/bash.bash_logout
./etc/defaults
./etc/defaults/etc
./etc/defaults/etc/bash.bashrc
./etc/defaults/etc/bash.bash_logout
./etc/defaults/etc/cygserver.conf
./etc/defaults/etc/DIR_COLORS
./etc/defaults/etc/man.conf
./etc/defaults/etc/profile
./etc/defaults/etc/profile.d
./etc/defaults/etc/profile.d/lang.csh
./etc/defaults/etc/profile.d/lang.sh
./etc/defaults/etc/skel
./etc/defaults/etc/skel/.bashrc
./etc/defaults/etc/skel/.bash_profile
./etc/defaults/etc/skel/.inputrc
./etc/defaults/etc/skel/.profile
./etc/DIR_COLORS
./etc/fstab
./etc/fstab.d
./etc/group
./etc/hosts
./etc/man.conf
./etc/mtab
./etc/networks
./etc/passwd
./etc/postinstall
./etc/postinstall/000-cygwin-post-install.sh.done
./etc/postinstall/base-files-mketc.sh.done
./etc/postinstall/base-files-profile.sh.done
./etc/postinstall/bash.sh.done
./etc/postinstall/coreutils.sh.done
./etc/postinstall/man.sh.done
./etc/postinstall/terminfo.sh.done
./etc/postinstall/update-info-dir.sh.done
./etc/preremove
./etc/preremove/base-files-manifest.lst
./etc/preremove/base-files.sh
./etc/preremove/coreutils-manifest.lst
./etc/preremove/coreutils.sh
./etc/preremove/man.sh
./etc/profile
./etc/profile.d
./etc/profile.d/lang.csh
./etc/profile.d/lang.sh
./etc/protocols
./etc/rsyncd.conf
./etc/services
./etc/setup
./etc/setup/alternatives.lst.gz
./etc/setup/base-cygwin.lst.gz
./etc/setup/base-files.lst.gz
./etc/setup/bash.lst.gz
./etc/setup/bzip2.lst.gz
./etc/setup/coreutils.lst.gz
./etc/setup/cygrunsrv.lst.gz
./etc/setup/cygutils.lst.gz
./etc/setup/cygwin-doc.lst.gz
./etc/setup/cygwin.lst.gz
./etc/setup/dash.lst.gz
./etc/setup/diffutils.lst.gz
./etc/setup/dos2unix.lst.gz
./etc/setup/editrights.lst.gz
./etc/setup/file.lst.gz
./etc/setup/findutils.lst.gz
./etc/setup/gawk.lst.gz
./etc/setup/gettext.lst.gz
./etc/setup/grep.lst.gz
./etc/setup/groff.lst.gz
./etc/setup/gzip.lst.gz
./etc/setup/installed.db
./etc/setup/ipc-utils.lst.gz
./etc/setup/less.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libattr1.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libbz2_1.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libgcc1.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libgmp3.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libiconv2.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libintl8.lst.gz
./etc/setup/liblzma5.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libncurses10.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libncursesw10.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libpcre0.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libpopt0.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libreadline7.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libsigsegv2.lst.gz
./etc/setup/libstdc++6.lst.gz
./etc/setup/login.lst.gz
./etc/setup/man.lst.gz
./etc/setup/mintty.lst.gz
./etc/setup/rebase.lst.gz
./etc/setup/rsync.lst.gz
./etc/setup/run.lst.gz
./etc/setup/sed.lst.gz
./etc/setup/setup.rc
./etc/setup/tar.lst.gz
./etc/setup/terminfo.lst.gz
./etc/setup/texinfo.lst.gz
./etc/setup/timestamp
./etc/setup/tzcode.lst.gz
./etc/setup/which.lst.gz
./etc/setup/xz.lst.gz
./etc/setup/zlib0.lst.gz
./etc/setup/_update-info-dir.lst.gz
./etc/skel
./etc/skel/.bashrc
./etc/skel/.bash_profile
./etc/skel/.inputrc
./etc/skel/.profile
./home
./lib
./service_install.bat
./service_uninstall.bat
./tmp
./usr
./usr/local
./usr/local/bin
./usr/local/etc
./usr/local/lib
./usr/sbin
./usr/sbin/alternatives.exe
./usr/sbin/backup
./usr/sbin/cygserver.exe
./usr/sbin/makewhatis
./usr/sbin/restore
./usr/sbin/tzselect
./usr/sbin/update-alternatives
./usr/sbin/zdump.exe
./usr/sbin/zic.exe
./usr/share
./usr/share/awk
./usr/share/awk/assert.awk
./usr/share/awk/bits2str.awk
./usr/share/awk/cliff_rand.awk
./usr/share/awk/ctime.awk
./usr/share/awk/ftrans.awk
./usr/share/awk/getopt.awk
./usr/share/awk/gettime.awk
./usr/share/awk/group.awk
./usr/share/awk/join.awk
./usr/share/awk/libintl.awk
./usr/share/awk/noassign.awk
./usr/share/awk/ord.awk
./usr/share/awk/passwd.awk
./usr/share/awk/quicksort.awk
./usr/share/awk/readable.awk
./usr/share/awk/rewind.awk
./usr/share/awk/round.awk
./usr/share/awk/strtonum.awk
./usr/share/awk/walkarray.awk
./usr/share/awk/zerofile.awk
./usr/share/file
./usr/share/file/magic
./usr/share/gettext
./usr/share/gettext/ABOUT-NLS
./usr/share/locale
./usr/share/locale/en@boldquot
./usr/share/locale/en@boldquot/LC_MESSAGES
./usr/share/locale/en@boldquot/LC_MESSAGES/bash.mo
./usr/share/locale/en@boldquot/LC_MESSAGES/gettext-runtime.mo
./usr/share/locale/en@quot
./usr/share/locale/en@quot/LC_MESSAGES
./usr/share/locale/en@quot/LC_MESSAGES/bash.mo
./usr/share/locale/en@quot/LC_MESSAGES/gettext-runtime.mo
./usr/share/locale/en_GB
./usr/share/locale/en_GB/LC_MESSAGES
./usr/share/locale/en_GB/LC_MESSAGES/alternatives.mo
./usr/share/locale/eu
./usr/share/locale/eu/LC_MESSAGES
./usr/share/locale/eu/LC_MESSAGES/coreutils.mo
./usr/share/locale/eu/LC_MESSAGES/grep.mo
./usr/share/locale/eu/LC_MESSAGES/sed.mo
./usr/share/locale/eu/LC_MESSAGES/tar.mo
./usr/share/locale/eu/LC_TIME
./usr/share/locale/eu/LC_TIME/coreutils.mo
./usr/share/locale/it
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/alternatives.mo
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/coreutils.mo
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/diffutils.mo
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/findutils.mo
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/gawk.mo
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/gettext-runtime.mo
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/grep.mo
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/sed.mo
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/tar.mo
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/xz.mo
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_TIME
./usr/share/locale/it/LC_TIME/coreutils.mo
./usr/share/locale/locale.alias
./usr/share/magic
./usr/share/misc
./usr/share/tabset
./usr/share/tabset/std
./usr/share/tabset/stdcrt
./usr/share/tabset/vt100
./usr/share/tabset/vt300
./usr/share/terminfo
./usr/share/terminfo/41
./usr/share/terminfo/41/Apple_Terminal
./usr/share/terminfo/45
./usr/share/terminfo/45/Eterm
./usr/share/terminfo/45/Eterm-256color
./usr/share/terminfo/45/Eterm-88color
./usr/share/terminfo/45/Eterm-color
./usr/share/terminfo/61
./usr/share/terminfo/61/ansi
./usr/share/terminfo/61/ansi80x25
./usr/share/terminfo/61/ansis
./usr/share/terminfo/63
./usr/share/terminfo/63/cons25
./usr/share/terminfo/63/cygwin
./usr/share/terminfo/63/cygwin-1p5
./usr/share/terminfo/63/cygwin-old
./usr/share/terminfo/64
./usr/share/terminfo/64/dumb
./usr/share/terminfo/67
./usr/share/terminfo/67/gnome
./usr/share/terminfo/67/gnome+pcfkeys
./usr/share/terminfo/67/gnome-2007
./usr/share/terminfo/67/gnome-2008
./usr/share/terminfo/67/gnome-256color
./usr/share/terminfo/67/gnome-fc5
./usr/share/terminfo/67/gnome-rh62
./usr/share/terminfo/67/gnome-rh72
./usr/share/terminfo/67/gnome-rh80
./usr/share/terminfo/67/gnome-rh90
./usr/share/terminfo/68
./usr/share/terminfo/68/hurd
./usr/share/terminfo/6a
./usr/share/terminfo/6a/jfbterm
./usr/share/terminfo/6b
./usr/share/terminfo/6b/kon
./usr/share/terminfo/6b/kon2
./usr/share/terminfo/6c
./usr/share/terminfo/6c/linux
./usr/share/terminfo/6d
./usr/share/terminfo/6d/mach
./usr/share/terminfo/6d/mach-bold
./usr/share/terminfo/6d/mach-color
./usr/share/terminfo/6d/mlterm
./usr/share/terminfo/6d/mrxvt
./usr/share/terminfo/6e
./usr/share/terminfo/6e/nsterm
./usr/share/terminfo/6e/nsterm-old
./usr/share/terminfo/6e/nxterm
./usr/share/terminfo/70
./usr/share/terminfo/70/pcansi
./usr/share/terminfo/70/putty
./usr/share/terminfo/70/putty-256color
./usr/share/terminfo/70/putty-vt100
./usr/share/terminfo/72
./usr/share/terminfo/72/rxvt
./usr/share/terminfo/72/rxvt+pcfkeys
./usr/share/terminfo/72/rxvt-16color
./usr/share/terminfo/72/rxvt-256color
./usr/share/terminfo/72/rxvt-88color
./usr/share/terminfo/72/rxvt-basic
./usr/share/terminfo/72/rxvt-color
./usr/share/terminfo/72/rxvt-cygwin
./usr/share/terminfo/72/rxvt-cygwin-native
./usr/share/terminfo/72/rxvt-xpm
./usr/share/terminfo/73
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen+fkeys
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen-16color
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen-16color-bce
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen-16color-bce-s
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen-16color-s
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen-256color
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen-256color-bce
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen-256color-bce-s
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen-256color-s
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen-bce
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen-s
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen-w
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen.Eterm
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen.linux
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen.mlterm
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen.rxvt
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen.teraterm
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen.xterm-new
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen.xterm-r6
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen.xterm-xfree86
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen2
./usr/share/terminfo/73/screen3
./usr/share/terminfo/73/sun
./usr/share/terminfo/73/sun1
./usr/share/terminfo/73/sun2
./usr/share/terminfo/74
./usr/share/terminfo/74/teraterm
./usr/share/terminfo/76
./usr/share/terminfo/76/vs100
./usr/share/terminfo/76/vt100
./usr/share/terminfo/76/vt100-am
./usr/share/terminfo/76/vt100-nav
./usr/share/terminfo/76/vt102
./usr/share/terminfo/76/vt200
./usr/share/terminfo/76/vt220
./usr/share/terminfo/76/vt52
./usr/share/terminfo/77
./usr/share/terminfo/77/wsvt25
./usr/share/terminfo/77/wsvt25m
./usr/share/terminfo/78
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xfce
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+256color
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+88color
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+app
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+edit
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+noapp
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+pc+edit
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+pcc0
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+pcc1
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+pcc2
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+pcc3
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+pce2
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+pcf0
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+pcf2
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+pcfkeys
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+r6f2
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+sl
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+sl-twm
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm+vt+edit
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-1002
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-1003
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-16color
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-24
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-256color
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-88color
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-8bit
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-basic
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-bold
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-color
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-hp
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-new
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-nic
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-noapp
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-old
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-pcolor
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-r5
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-r6
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-sco
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-sun
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-vt220
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-vt52
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-xf86-v32
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-xf86-v33
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-xf86-v333
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-xf86-v40
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-xf86-v43
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-xf86-v44
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-xfree86
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm-xi
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterm1
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xtermc
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xtermm
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterms
./usr/share/terminfo/78/xterms-sun
./usr/share/texinfo
./usr/share/texinfo/texinfo.cat
./usr/share/texinfo/texinfo.dtd
./usr/share/texinfo/texinfo.xsl
./usr/src
./usr/tmp
./var
./var/cache
./var/cache/man
./var/cache/man/.keep-man
./var/lib
./var/lib/alternatives
./var/lib/alternatives/.keep-alternatives
./var/log
./var/run
./var/run/utmp
./var/tmp

Now the only thing missing is a bat with the commands used to install the service:

c:
cd c:\cygwin\bin\
cygrunsrv -I "RSYNC" -d "Rsync server" -p /bin/rsync.exe -a "--daemon --no-detach"
net start RSYNC

For ssh, telnet, amanda anythin else the steps are quite the same: start from the list above and add the needed dll and binaries. A nsis script that you can use as a template is available here.

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