March 2007 - Installer-dev - lists.apple.com

Re: Launching a ViseX installer from a PackageMaker installer
by Peter Mulholland 31 Mar '07

31 Mar '07

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hello Cormac, Saturday, March 31, 2007, 4:20:39 PM, you wrote: > Hi All, > My product will incorporate a 3rd party plug-in - this will have its > own ViseX installer. My product uses a PackageMaker solution and I > wish to launch the ViseX installer from mine. I can sucessfully do > this using a preflight or preinstall shell script. > The ViseX installer will require the user to specify an installation > directory (whose location will be written to a plist file) at install- > time and the installer for my application will need to read this at a > later point to ensure that components of its installation are put in > the same location as the plug-in. The ViseX installer must therefore > finish running before my installer proceeds to install its own files. > However, when the ViseX installer is called the PackageMaker > installer is still visible and active, albeit not in focus. It is > therefore possible for the user to continue using the PackageMaker > installer before the ViseX installer has finished, in which case the > installation process will not run correctly. > Its possible to put explanatory text in PackageMaker's readme/welcome > window but this not ideal. I was wondering if its possible to somehow > disable the PackageMaker installer until the ViseX installer has > sucessfully finished running? This issue may concern shell scripting > more than it does installers in general but I thought this might be a > good place to ask. > Hope all this is clear, and any suggestions would be appreciated, Why must the ViseX installer run first? I'm not familiar with ViseX but I am wondering if there is any commandline options that allow you to silently install with a set path. In that case, just kick it off in a postflight script. It sounds like you would be best repackaging the plugin into a .pkg file and then make your installer a metapackage. There is a thread titled "Creating Installer Packages from VISE packages" which might be of use to you. -- Best regards, Peter mailto:darkmatter@blueyonder.co.uk _______________________________________________ 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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Launching a ViseX installer from a PackageMaker installer
by Cormac Daly 31 Mar '07

31 Mar '07

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hi All, Hope all this is clear, and any suggestions would be appreciated, Thanks, Cormac _______________________________________________ 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.… My product will incorporate a 3rd party plug-in - this will have its own ViseX installer. My product uses a PackageMaker solution and I wish to launch the ViseX installer from mine. I can sucessfully do this using a preflight or preinstall shell script. The ViseX installer will require the user to specify an installation directory (whose location will be written to a plist file) at install- time and the installer for my application will need to read this at a later point to ensure that components of its installation are put in the same location as the plug-in. The ViseX installer must therefore finish running before my installer proceeds to install its own files. However, when the ViseX installer is called the PackageMaker installer is still visible and active, albeit not in focus. It is therefore possible for the user to continue using the PackageMaker installer before the ViseX installer has finished, in which case the installation process will not run correctly. Its possible to put explanatory text in PackageMaker's readme/welcome window but this not ideal. I was wondering if its possible to somehow disable the PackageMaker installer until the ViseX installer has sucessfully finished running? This issue may concern shell scripting more than it does installers in general but I thought this might be a good place to ask. This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Installer plug-ins and /tmp issues
by Mike Fischer 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Am 29.03.2007 um 21:04 schrieb Atticus O Gifford <atticus(a)MIT.EDU>: Have you checked if this might be a permissions problem? Basically I'm using this code in my didExitPane: method: strlcpy(nnnProductPath, tmpPath, sizeof(nnnProductPath)); strlcat(nnnProductPath, nnnProductFileName, sizeof(nnnProductPath)); int nnnChoiceFile = open(nnnProductPath, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC, 0660); // ... write to the file... close(nnnChoiceFile); (plus error handling of course) 1) Should I be using /private/tmp rather than /tmp? I'm not sure which is the more appropriate location. See above. HTH Mike -- Mike Fischer Softwareentwicklung, EDV-Beratung Schulung, Vertrieb Web: <http://homepage.mac.com/mike_fischer/index.html> Note: I read this list in digest mode! Send me a private copy for faster responses. _______________________________________________ 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 brings me to the main issue I'm having (sorry for all the description): I need a way to pass the information gathered in the plug-in phase to a package later in the installation process that does all the actual file- writing (this is a distribution package). I'm doing something similar in an Installer package written for a customer of mine. I'm currently using /tmp as a well-known location to pass messages in text files, but I'm not sure that's the best solution here. Additionally, the package that does the writing at the end seems to have trouble installing files to /tmp (I get generic errors, and the installer quits with no other information). My Installer package needs admin/root permissions anyway so for me this is not an issue. I write a file using a UUID name (to avoid conflicts with a very high probablity) to /tmp from my Installer Plugin. In the postflight script I then read that file, process its contents and then delete it. This works fine for me. (During my initial testing last year I found no other way to pass information from an Installer Plugin to a postflight script. If anybody has a better way, I'd be delighted to hear about it.) // A UUID generated using uuidgen(1). The following is just a placeholder of course. // You should generate your own UUID: const char nnnProductFileName[] = "12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789ABCD", tmpPath[] = "/tmp/"; char nnnProductPath[PATH_MAX]; In the postflight script I reference the file using the same UUID as above: NNN_PRODUCT_CHOICE="/tmp/12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789ABCD" As others have mentioned it shouldn't make any difference because / tmp is a symlink to /private/tmp. 2) Am I approaching this all wrong? What are other people doing? 3) why won't files install into /tmp from the package I'm using? Permissions on original files? Should it matter for /tmp? On my 10.4.9 system /private/tmp has drwxrwxrwt root:wheel permissions. That means anyone should be able to create a file there and write to it. I would expect this to be similar for other versions of Mac OS X. What errors are you seeing in your Installer Plugin when you are creating the file? Maybe it already exists (from an earlier test) and your opening mode doesn't allow for that? This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Installer plug-ins and /tmp issues
by Atticus Gifford 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com On Mar 29, 2007, at 3:06 AM, Stéphane Sudre wrote: On jeudi, mars 29, 2007, at 04:42 AM, Atticus O Gifford wrote: ------- [...] 1) Should I be using /private/tmp rather than /tmp? I'm not sure which is the more appropriate location. 2) Am I approaching this all wrong? What are other people doing? Thanks for the help, Atticus _______________________________________________ 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 apologize for the length of this! The short version is I need a way to pass information from plug-ins that get executed before the authorization step in the installer to a package later in the installer that does the actual writing. For more detail, read on: I'm currently using /tmp as a well-known location to pass messages in text files, but I'm not sure that's the best solution here. Additionally, the package that does the writing at the end seems to have trouble installing files to /tmp (I get generic errors, and the installer quits with no other information). 3) why won't files install into /tmp from the package I'm using? Permissions on original files? Should it matter for /tmp? Grouping 1) and 3). Since /tmp is symlink to /private/tmp, is the Follow Symlink option enabled in your package? It is enabled. I'm pretty certain I tried both /tmp and /private/tmp directly with the same results. I also got a response off-list that suggested I use temp space in the user domain ($HOME). I wasn't sure whether that would work at first since these packages need to be deployed via ARD and I didn't know how Installer ran in that situation. Since it now looks like it runs under a chosen user account, the user domain temp space is probably a more appropriate location than /private/tmp. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions along those lines, I'd sure appreciate it. This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Installer plug-ins and /tmp issues
by Stéphane Sudre 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com On jeudi, mars 29, 2007, at 04:42 AM, Atticus O Gifford wrote: ------- [...] 1) Should I be using /private/tmp rather than /tmp? I'm not sure which is the more appropriate location. 2) Am I approaching this all wrong? What are other people doing? _______________________________________________ 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 apologize for the length of this! The short version is I need a way to pass information from plug-ins that get executed before the authorization step in the installer to a package later in the installer that does the actual writing. For more detail, read on: I'm currently using /tmp as a well-known location to pass messages in text files, but I'm not sure that's the best solution here. Additionally, the package that does the writing at the end seems to have trouble installing files to /tmp (I get generic errors, and the installer quits with no other information). 3) why won't files install into /tmp from the package I'm using? Permissions on original files? Should it matter for /tmp? Grouping 1) and 3). Since /tmp is symlink to /private/tmp, is the Follow Symlink option enabled in your package? This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Installer plug-ins and /tmp issues
by Fritz Anderson 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.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.… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Installer plug-ins and /tmp issues
by Atticus O Gifford 29 Mar '07

29 Mar '07

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com User-agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.0.3) I apologize for the length of this! The short version is I need a way to pass information from plug-ins that get executed before the authorization step in the installer to a package later in the installer that does the actual writing. For more detail, read on: ------- I'm working on migrating our old installers from VISE to PackageMaker, and I'm running some issues regarding configuration. Most of our installers are repackaged vendor installers with added bits to streamline user configuration. For example, we used to repackage Eudora, and all the user had to do was provide their MIT user name and the installer would configure their account, get their mail server etc. In trying to move the essential functionality over into PackageMaker, it seems like Plug-ins are best option from a UI perspective. They have the added benefit of not running when the installer is pushed out via Apple Remote Desktop, which is the behavior we want. My current installer uses a plug-in to display the user's configuration info (server, username etc.) on an upgrade, or to display a default set of preferences if it's a new install. The user can make changes, and then click onward to begin the actual installation. The problem is that the app's preferences are stored in a folder under /Library/Preferences, and so the installing user can't create a folder there on a new install if they're not an Admin. Apparently, the authorization doesn't take effect until the actual files start getting laid down. This brings me to the main issue I'm having (sorry for all the description): I need a way to pass the information gathered in the plug-in phase to a package later in the installation process that does all the actual file-writing (this is a distribution package). I'm currently using /tmp as a well-known location to pass messages in text files, but I'm not sure that's the best solution here. Additionally, the package that does the writing at the end seems to have trouble installing files to /tmp (I get generic errors, and the installer quits with no other information). 1) Should I be using /private/tmp rather than /tmp? I'm not sure which is the more appropriate location. 2) Am I approaching this all wrong? What are other people doing? 3) why won't files install into /tmp from the package I'm using? Permissions on original files? Should it matter for /tmp? Any thoughts or experiences would be helpful. Thanks, and sorry again for the long message! Atticus Gifford _______________________________________________ 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: Weird dialog after adding plugins
by Peter Bierman 28 Mar '07

28 Mar '07

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 7:55 PM -0700 3/27/07, Mike wrote: After I write some plugins and add them to my installer, I now get the following weird dialog when I first run the installer: I really don't want this dialog to show up but there doesn't seem to be any way to supress it. All my plugins work fine, but adding any one of them to the installer bundle causes this message to show up when the installer is run. Is there any way to eliminate this dialog? No, the dialog is there as a security warning to the user. Installer packages that contain plugins contain executable code that can do _anything_ once the installer loads the plugin. This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Detecting CPU Speed
by Gary Pederson 28 Mar '07

28 Mar '07

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Dkim-signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:content-type:message-id:content-transfer-encoding:from:subject:date:to:x-mailer; b=ngeV8Mo9Kk0SqAeH4FtyBHsTgu96IVrizPvdthUQs9F3N5VNE/5fZLAFH/J6PgyV4mn2Uu+2ZsXiBNEwieeI/zZ24lI1R8lXOnSA5bj2qtzFnM5jGQNyp2gTKZZHG9uXDzdq1FMNtg8Tw0ClAbfieT0/5ZCEFsCGOL3qo2BBx9o= Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:content-type:message-id:content-transfer-encoding:from:subject:date:to:x-mailer; b=e932KHOeovl48EMgWleG/xWff71siKUqVLE1RHBC9KmNtfVgkkD10bAGf9CHEfQjtv7eLxMFwrOYIu5uaWZi2QYAeT/XiVte14wRcfwWxK+pzYjXeG4G2PwF8lYAOrNqBHdIQHWJSjhP/dXbfQKmcFoXE0HoOG4ZaEskKsj4Pb0= sub CpuFrequency { ################################################################## # This should work on 10.2 and later: local $value = 0; local @hardware = `system_profiler SPHardwareDataType`; chomp @hardware; foreach ( @hardware ) { # Could say "CPU Speed" or "Processor Speed" # Speed value could contain a decimal or not # Hz could be prefixed with M, G or other if ( m/^\s*(?:CPU|Processor) Speed: (\d+\.*\d*)\s*([MGTPEZY])Hz/ ) { $value = $1; if ( $2 eq "M" ) { $value = $value * (10**6); } elsif ( $2 eq "G") { $value = $value * (10**9); } elsif ( $2 eq "T") { $value = $value * (10**12); } elsif ( $2 eq "P") { $value = $value * (10**15); } elsif ( $2 eq "E") { $value = $value * (10**18); } elsif ( $2 eq "Z") { $value = $value * (10**21); } elsif ( $2 eq "Y") { # We can dream about YHz in our code, right? $value = $value * (10**24); } } } if ( $value == 0 ) { # First method failed -- Get it the "right way" # NOTE: some G4 laptops report slower speed on pre-10.4 using this $value = `sysctl -n hw.cpufrequency`; $value; } return $value; } On Mar 27, 2007, at 3:25 PM, Gary Pederson wrote: sub CpuFrequency { ################################################################## # This should work on 10.2 and later: local $value = 0; local @hardware = `system_profiler SPHardwareDataType`; chomp @hardware; foreach ( @hardware ) { if ( m/^\s*CPU Speed: (\d+) ([MGTPEZY])Hz/ ) { $value = $1.$2; $value =~ s/M/000000/; $value =~ s/G/000000000/; $value =~ s/T/000000000000/; $value =~ s/P/000000000000000/; $value =~ s/E/000000000000000000/; $value =~ s/Z/000000000000000000000/; $value =~ s/Y/000000000000000000000000/; } } return $value; } On Mar 26, 2007, at 9:55 PM, Gary Pederson wrote: The incorrect values are from /usr/sbin/sysctl. On Mar 26, 2007, at 11:52 AM, Luke Bellandi wrote: Gary, On Mar 24, 2007, at 5:55 PM, Gary Pederson wrote: On those systems, sysctl returns hw.cpufrequency: 533333332 hw.cpufrequency_min: 533333332 hw.cpufrequency_max: 533333332 When it should report hw.cpufrequency: 867000000 hw.cpufrequency_min: 533333332 hw.cpufrequency_max: 867000000 - Luke Thanks, Gary Pederson _______________________________________________ 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/luke%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.… The previous code I posted did not work other systems. Here's an improved subroutine that seems to work on all systems: I tested it and "system_profiler SPHardwareDataType" works on G4 laptops pre-10.4. Here's the perl subroutine I'm using, if anyone else wonders into this (we can dream about YHz in out code, right?): In an earlier email, Daniel Soderberg suggested using the following command: system_profiler SPHardwareDataType | grep Speed I haven't gotten back to those systems to see if it works, but I'll post the results within a few days. I've been detecting CPU speed in my InstallationCheck scripts using `sysctl -n hw.cpufrequency` and `sysctl -n hw.cpufrequency_max` These are returning the correct values on most machines, but the wrong values on other machines (at least 867MHz G4 PowerBooks in 10.3.9) -- So some of our customers get a confusing message about their CPU being too slow. Are these values returned from your Javascript functions in your distribution, or are they the values returned from /usr/sbin/sysctl? If they're coming from your Javascript, check what /usr/sbin/sysctl is returning for that property and let us know if that's correct. Is there a way to accurately detect the maximum cpu speed on all OS X Macs? Or at least on the ones I need to support (G4, G5, x86 -- 10.3.9 and later)? This email sent to luke(a)apple.com This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Weird dialog after adding plugins
by Brian Ray 28 Mar '07

28 Mar '07

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Brian Ray bray(a)sent.com http://kazavoo.com/blog _______________________________________________ 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.… On Mar 27, 2007, at 9:55 PM, Mike wrote: I really don't want this dialog to show up but there doesn't seem to be any way to supress it. All my plugins work fine, but adding any one of them to the installer bundle causes this message to show up when the installer is run. The installer detects a preflight, preinstall, or preupgrade script in one of your packages. Removing the script will get rid of the warning; however, you probably need the script. This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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