How to change the default registry cache location about vcpkg

[dg0yt]

The Gitlab CI pipeline runs under the system profile

I consider this broken, but you will find more tickets.

[ypogribnyi]

Registries cache location can be changed through X_VCPKG_REGISTRIES_CACHE environment variable, just set it to the absolute path of your directory. This var is not documented, I'm not sure why.

You might also want to set VCPKG_DOWNLOADS, X_VCPKG_ASSET_SOURCES and VCPKG_DEFAULT_BINARY_CACHE to make sure vcpkg doesn't use the %LocalAppData% directory.

[Osyotr]

Directory does not exist: C:/Windows/System32/config/systemprofile/AppData/Local/vcpkg/registries/git-trees/88a7058fc7fa73a9c4c99cfcae9d79e2abf87a5a

This is not local binary cache. This is registry cache.
The probable reason it works for you in classic mode but not in manifest mode is because former uses built-in registry and latter uses git registry (set in your manifest).

[rashton-snl]

Thank you for your help, @Osyotr. As I suspected, it was a misunderstanding on my part. Is there a way to change the default registry cache location?

[Thomas1664]

The directory does exist, but vcpkg cannot build the port due to permission restrictions.

Which directory does exist?

C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\vcpkg\registries\git-trees\88a7058fc7fa73a9c4c99cfcae9d79e2abf87a5a or C:/Windows/System32/config/systemprofile/AppData/Local/vcpkg/registries/git-trees/88a7058fc7fa73a9c4c99cfcae9d79e2abf87a5a?

The later one seems very unusual to me and I highly doubt that vcpkg was able to put something in a subdirectory of System32.

[rashton-snl]

Surprisingly, the latter path does exist. The Gitlab CI pipeline runs under the system profile, and so %LOCALAPPDATA% expands to C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local. Somehow, vcpkg is able to create that registry cache, but then it cannot access that cache when building the port.

The first path you list comes from my local tests outside of the CI pipeline (replace %USERNAME% with actual username) where I was trying to figure out a way to point vcpkg away from %LOCALAPPDATA%.

[rashton-snl]

The Gitlab CI pipeline runs under the system profile

I consider this broken, but you will find more tickets.

Yeah, it's really not great how Gitlab runs pipelines under the system profile. I found several similar issues, but they all point to binary caching issues, which is what led me down that path. As Osyotr pointed out, though, this seems to be a registry cache issue. Ideally, vcpkg would provide some way for me to change the registry cache location, but I can't find any documentation to support that route.

[rashton-snl]

As a workaround, I temporarily point $Env:LOCALAPPDATA to a location with read/write permissions in my CI script. It's not pretty, but it does work.

Inspired by #12285

[rashton-snl]

Registries cache location can be changed through X_VCPKG_REGISTRIES_CACHE environment variable, just set it to the absolute path of your directory. This var is not documented, I'm not sure why.

Thank you, @ypogribnyi, that worked!