June 2006 - Installer-dev - lists.apple.com

Re: installing from fileserver
by Rick Sustek 30 Jun '06

30 Jun '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com -Rick _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… A work-around, which we use effectively, is to wrap the package up in a disk image and place that file on the network. Users on the network can double-click the dmg icon from Finder and automatically mount up the image. Then double-click the package icon to fire up the installer. Since the mounted dmg resides on the local machine, permission issues are kept local. This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: installing from fileserver
by Peter Bierman 30 Jun '06

30 Jun '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com -pmb _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… At 6:27 PM -0400 6/30/06, Philip D. Wasson wrote: I just discovered that my built packages cannot be installed when they're located on a fileserver. If accessed via AFP, I get "Error Reading Package. The package can not be installed from a network volume.[...]"; if accessed via SMB, it's less friendly. I saw a little discussion about this in a different list's archives (system imaging?), but I didn't find a resolution. So can anyone tell me what conditions will allow or prevent installation off a fileserver? Packages that require admin authorization cause the installer's unarchiving engine to run as root so that the files being created can be created with the correct users, groups, and permissions. For security reasons, most network filesystems do not allow the root user to read files. So until the Installer refactors its unarchiving code into two processes (one to read, one to write), it usually can't read auth-required packages from a network volume. <rdar://problem/3508076> Cannot open auth-required package on network volume if "other" has no access [permissions] This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: installing from fileserver
by Christopher Ryan 30 Jun '06

30 Jun '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Chris TIA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Philip D. Wasson pwasson at maned dot com Software Engineer Managing Editor Inc. _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/ryanc%40apple.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… If the package requires any sort of admin privileges (and if the package doesn't, I am not sure it has much use) and is on a network volume you usually get an error such as this. The reason is that in order to install with elevated privs, the Installer must run some parts as root. On most Network volume root doesn't have the see all access it does otherwise, so if the Installer thinks there might be a problem it tells you that in advanced. It isn't always correct, but it is better to be safe then sorry. I just discovered that my built packages cannot be installed when they're located on a fileserver. If accessed via AFP, I get "Error Reading Package. The package can not be installed from a network volume.[...]"; if accessed via SMB, it's less friendly. I saw a little discussion about this in a different list's archives (system imaging?), but I didn't find a resolution. So can anyone tell me what conditions will allow or prevent installation off a fileserver? This email sent to ryanc(a)apple.com This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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installing from fileserver
by Philip D. Wasson 30 Jun '06

30 Jun '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com TIA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Philip D. Wasson pwasson at maned dot com Software Engineer Managing Editor Inc. _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… I just discovered that my built packages cannot be installed when they're located on a fileserver. If accessed via AFP, I get "Error Reading Package. The package can not be installed from a network volume.[...]"; if accessed via SMB, it's less friendly. I saw a little discussion about this in a different list's archives (system imaging?), but I didn't find a resolution. So can anyone tell me what conditions will allow or prevent installation off a fileserver? This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Problem with locator definitions
by Sean Kelly 30 Jun '06

30 Jun '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com That would be great. Please send it in. Thanks, Sean Kelly _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… I can submit the ailing .pmproj, if that’s desirable. This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Problem with locator definitions
by Nathan Herring 30 Jun '06

30 Jun '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Organization: Microsoft Corporation / Macintosh Business Unit Thread-index: Acab3he9VhNCCAfREduX1AAKlWdyEg== Thread-topic: Problem with locator definitions User-agent: Microsoft-Entourage/11.2.4.060510 _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Can I refer to files outside of a .pax archive?
by Stéphane Sudre 29 Jun '06

29 Jun '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com On jeudi, juin 29, 2006, at 11:52 PM, Nathan Herring wrote: _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… It looks like the key IFPkgFlagAltSourceLocation is related to this use. Is there a way to use packagemaker(1) or Package Maker to produce .pkgs of this type, or is this a build-your-own? Also, I don't see this key listed in the documentation for Package Maker, nor by Googling with site:developer.apple.com. Some flags that you can find in either the OS installations/updates or Apple's application packages are not documented. The trick is to make sure that this flag is working on _all_ the OS release you plan to support. For instance, IFPkgHideSubpackages is only supported on some recent OS releases AFAIK (last time I checked this flag was not documented either). This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Can I refer to files outside of a .pax archive?
by Stéphane Sudre 29 Jun '06

29 Jun '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com On jeudi, juin 29, 2006, at 11:30 PM, Rick Sustek wrote: 1. Permissions issue to drop the file(s) 2. Permissions are blown up if an admin user do this 3. An alias speaks only one language 4. Window Background pictures are not localizable ----- Point 2: Nobody ever cares. Point 1: Nobody ever cares. Any OS X user is an admin user, right? My €0.02 _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… For the simple drag install, I definitely like the popular convention of placing an alias to the /Applications folder right next to the icon of the app itself, and indicating that the user should just drag it over. Some reasons why this technique is a potential source of problems even when it seems just brilliant: One needs to be user with Admin privileges to do this (unless the permissions have been blown away by previous installations, which is not an uncommon situation in Mac OS X). So users with no admin accounts will try to drag and drop the file(s) and it won't work. Yet they were instructed to do that. The owner of the dropped files become the admin user who dropped the file not root as it should be. It might not be an issue but next time someone runs a Repair Permissions after installing an OS update (as if the problem was not there before the update), he may see that the permissions were incorrect and doesn't remember he just drag and dropped the file. It might be nice to have an alias of the Applications folder but Applications is not spelled "Applications" in Japanese. So one's potential Japanese customers will wonder what Applications is supposed to mean. Let's omit the fact that Finder Window Background pictures set on Mac OS X 10.2 and later are not visible on Mac OS X 10.1. If they are not localizable, then it means you need to make one version for each language you're supporting so that the instructions do not turn into an enigma. The QA team (just in case you're not the QA team too) will thank you for adding more testing cases. Advantage: it solves Point 3. Based on the different applications installed by drag and drop from a disk image I've seen: Points 3 and 4: Never taken into account. The application is touted to include a bunch of localization, but the installation procedure is not localized itself. This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Can I refer to files outside of a .pax archive?
by Nathan Herring 29 Jun '06

29 Jun '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Organization: Microsoft Corporation / Macintosh Business Unit Thread-index: Acabxliplv6Bege5EduX1AAKlWdyEg== Thread-topic: Can I refer to files outside of a .pax archive? User-agent: Microsoft-Entourage/11.2.4.060510 It looks like the key IFPkgFlagAltSourceLocation is related to this use. Is there a way to use packagemaker(1) or Package Maker to produce .pkgs of this type, or is this a build-your-own? Also, I don't see this key listed in the documentation for Package Maker, nor by Googling with site:developer.apple.com. (Not that mkbom is hard to use, but it suffers from the same problem of wanting to record the items as /Suite Foo/Bar.app and getting everything else in /Suite Foo/) -nh On 6/29/06 2:19 PM, "Peter Bierman" <bierman(a)apple.com> wrote: > At 7:02 PM -0700 6/28/06, Nathan Herring wrote: >> It seems that the uncompressed option merely generates a very large >> .pax file in the resulting .pkg file. Is there a way to just have an >> package refer to bits already unpaxed? The idea here is that on the >> installation disc, there's a full installation that you can >> drag-n-drop, but if you really want to, you can run the installer. >> I'd prefer not to have to duplicate the data (one full set + one >> compressed set), but rather just have the installer refer to the >> files already layed out on the CD. > > > Hi Nathan, > > Yes, this is possible. The BaseSystem.pkg on the InstallCD/DVD uses > this method. > > -pmb -- Nathan Herring MacBU SDE/Development _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Can I refer to files outside of a .pax archive?
by Rick Sustek 29 Jun '06

29 Jun '06

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com -Rick _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.… For the simple drag install, I definitely like the popular convention of placing an alias to the /Applications folder right next to the icon of the app itself, and indicating that the user should just drag it over. But the Apple docs really suggest choosing one technique. If you can get by with a drag installation, great! Otherwise, you need a package and the Installer app is utilized. It sounds like Nathan should go with a package, and perhaps utilize meta-packaging to give users more options. ??? This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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