March 2010 - Installer-dev - lists.apple.com

Re: Launch agent runs as root immediately after install
by Greg Neagle 19 Mar '10

19 Mar '10

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com -Greg On Mar 19, 2010, at 12:30 PM, Nick Peelman wrote: Reboots and Logouts are terrible, and for what? To save the packager 5 minutes of logic? A reboot costs me 15 minutes, minimum. More depending on what i'm doing. That cost varies user to user, but its still a pain in the ass for anybody involved and reminds me too much of Windows. Macs can load (almost) everything (including kernel extensions) dynamically, and it says a lot about an application that can pop through its installer and be ready to go without a reboot; more concisely, it presents a MUCH better user experience. When VMWare got this right with Fusion 3 it made a big impact on my perception of things, and I was jaded by VMWare long ago. Xo has the right idea here; if you are concerned about the potential for multiple users, you handle those cases (via InstallationCheck) by only allowing the install to happen when one user is logged in. For a /Library/LaunchAgents this is the way it SHOULD be anyway, because you don't want to go unloading daemons or agents that may otherwise be in use, nor should you be running updates/installs and loading things for sessions that aren't yours (from the user's perspective, even if they're an admin). if (`who | grep console | wc | awk '{ print $1 }'` > 1) exit 112; Unless they change how they display the console sessions in the who command, or take away grep, wc, or awk, that's pretty bulletproof across versions, and if the install is being run by root remotely via SSH or via ARD it should fall through that without issue. launchctl logic hasn't changed *that* much between 10.5 and 10.6, for the most part load and unload work the same, the biggest change being how the -w flag is handled, and you shouldn't be using the -w flag anyway when loading/unloading. And i just want to point out that your method for starting up the process in userspace is absolutely overkill. All you need is: The bsexec is waaay nerdier, if that's what your going for, but variations of the above work for me (and many others), with lots of success. -nick -- Nick Peelman nick(a)peelman.us On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Greg Neagle <Greg.Neagle(a)disneyanimation.com> wrote: On Mar 19, 2010, at 11:39 AM, Greg Neagle wrote: This email sent to nick(a)peelman.us _______________________________________________ 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'm glad it works for you, but according to Apple DTS, it shouldn't, which makes me think if it does now, someday soon it won't. Apple recognizes the issues/problems here, but doesn't have any good/ clean solutions yet. If you can make this sort of thing work - that's fantastic. I, personally, wouldn't want to support all the edge cases around this, most of which can be resolved with a logout or reboot. We should continue to ask Apple for better tools to handle this "correctly', because I agree that avoiding unneeded logouts and reboots is a worthy goal. `su $USER -c 'launchctl unload /Library/LaunchAgents/ com.company.binary.plist'` Any other complicated launchctl hackery will work differently in 10.5 and 10.6, and may brake s/brake/break/ _______________________________________________ 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/nick %40peelman.us This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Launch agent runs as root immediately after install
by Nick Peelman 19 Mar '10

19 Mar '10

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Dkim-signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:sender:received:in-reply-to :references:date:x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=Ulp/d/rq42atzos34lEk43HrWlcGXadCie7mo3FGyCg=; b=iwYtiFLyNcbYedtKycJiU3W+sxUKtbU034tfgpMqiHeWiO2IXddEildF/p2E0o7WI6 c1qQGkJDGB2ZF+32AAeQ+uBrh73h/MqPR5wQWpwvLuGV6QBGXigKMHjixSSDxjUBRrmR Y6jZre/wfrivvW49OTlnav/YPRxu6snmT8wy8= Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; b=YW9Akd4lNFv/Gxdvot10aO9v0Xmx+E8XHKU9NQwvvVIARZphxaC0sQ4ei0xIuy7bVi zH+A/IkVX7KCys41Kf8R8S2WehCbTZBWVpKHVY8aGMSkXEDG4wDWJZYGIlV+BvKWnr5+ gih0U1OyzMa9m7EfsKGH334A1xY5HJIskKiWQ= Reboots and Logouts are terrible, and for what? To save the packager 5 minutes of logic? A reboot costs me 15 minutes, minimum. More depending on what i'm doing. That cost varies user to user, but its still a pain in the ass for anybody involved and reminds me too much of Windows. Macs can load (almost) everything (including kernel extensions) dynamically, and it says a lot about an application that can pop through its installer and be ready to go without a reboot; more concisely, it presents a MUCH better user experience. When VMWare got this right with Fusion 3 it made a big impact on my perception of things, and I was jaded by VMWare long ago. Xo has the right idea here; if you are concerned about the potential for multiple users, you handle those cases (via InstallationCheck) by only allowing the install to happen when one user is logged in. For a /Library/LaunchAgents this is the way it SHOULD be anyway, because you don't want to go unloading daemons or agents that may otherwise be in use, nor should you be running updates/installs and loading things for sessions that aren't yours (from the user's perspective, even if they're an admin). if (`who | grep console | wc | awk '{ print $1 }'` > 1) exit 112; Unless they change how they display the console sessions in the who command, or take away grep, wc, or awk, that's pretty bulletproof across versions, and if the install is being run by root remotely via SSH or via ARD it should fall through that without issue. launchctl logic hasn't changed *that* much between 10.5 and 10.6, for the most part load and unload work the same, the biggest change being how the -w flag is handled, and you shouldn't be using the -w flag anyway when loading/unloading. And i just want to point out that your method for starting up the process in userspace is absolutely overkill. All you need is: `su $USER -c 'launchctl unload /Library/LaunchAgents/com.company.binary.plist'` The bsexec is waaay nerdier, if that's what your going for, but variations of the above work for me (and many others), with lots of success. -nick -- Nick Peelman nick(a)peelman.us On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Greg Neagle <Greg.Neagle(a)disneyanimation.com> wrote: > > On Mar 19, 2010, at 11:39 AM, Greg Neagle wrote: > >> Any other complicated launchctl hackery will work differently in 10.5 and >> 10.6, and may brake > > s/brake/break/ > _______________________________________________ > 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/nick%40peelman.us > > This email sent to nick(a)peelman.us > _______________________________________________ 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: Launch agent runs as root immediately after install
by Arjun SM 19 Mar '10

19 Mar '10

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Dkim-signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=hss4pKS/yJcyKEZ9CfoglByXxWdcdWNqdB++mylVVqo=; b=b0DirrWI7uh2STWlG9jKZjRdk2Iva36Ja7cVBoygbr0N6xcVhZt48Y+fjFhAI8VJDM nuCB34ASXKHLAi+8WCU9wi5d0vZ9u9rSHjNWpLxOtQ8iytzyzvQgSXDwvwhcvxHeaNSd hCdLiMZ6dneN6/7/i/PqqOD6K71gf1TTs0MJw= Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; b=LErXSdlT9gd1sIYhySa88ulAduaUBeSl8QHJNQDzFM8kOI3yDT4irFMK7UbmIxOp7n ENQhDjgkKq+mK5LEMlo+CiOIIHy6Xmr+2SMdQkqDf5I24QHh48SfVE5fjJzdu5CXq+m6 L9Zyju1Q79RnSyMJhOoRL9536C1vJFUwvHLQQ= _______________________________________________ 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 If this works for you I will be a little surprised. <installer-dev-bounces+xochitl_lunde=tripplite.com(a)lists.apple.com> wrote on 03/19/2010 11:21:45 AM: > Yes, but it's fragile, and will probably break in future releases of > the OS. With each release of OS X, Apple makes it harder and harder > for a root process to operate in a user's context. The problem that I see is with reinstallation/upgrade. If you want to stop a daemon or agent that is installed and running you use 'launchctl unload -w'. On my system the program often is restarted automatically if I don't use the "-w" disable key. Maybe this is a bug? Anyway, when I do an upgrade install, I use the disable key to stop the daemon and launch agents entirely before writing new files. If I just write the files and reboot, the disabled key is still present and the new version won't load on the next boot. I have to use launchctl to re-enable the agent, and so I have to operate in at least the "on screen" user's context. Since I cannot use launchctl to start the agent for a user who is not "on screen", I don't allow the package to be installed if there's FUS user logged in "off screen". The enable/disable key is not set for that user because launchctl errors out trying to 'su' to that user. For my package, I would anticipate a problem if the user who reinstalls or upgrades is not the same user that installed it originally (the requirement for problem is trickier than just that, but this would be part of the equation). I was using the Daemons and Agents Technical Note 2083 to figure out a lot of these kinds of things. Unfortunately the documentation is lacking in its explanation of how to correctly start an agent even though the description is present for Daemons. I did fill out the feedback on that document saying that information is missing. I don't know if it would help if more people would submit the same feedback.

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Re: Launch agent runs as root immediately after install
by Greg Neagle 19 Mar '10

19 Mar '10

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com On Mar 19, 2010, at 11:39 AM, Greg Neagle wrote: s/brake/break/ _______________________________________________ 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.… Any other complicated launchctl hackery will work differently in 10.5 and 10.6, and may brake This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Launch agent runs as root immediately after install
by Greg Neagle 19 Mar '10

19 Mar '10

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 <installer-dev-bounces+xochitl_lunde=tripplite.com(a)lists.apple.com> wrote on 03/19/2010 11:21:45 AM: > Yes, but it's fragile, and will probably break in future releases of > the OS. With each release of OS X, Apple makes it harder and harder > for a root process to operate in a user's context. The problem that I see is with reinstallation/upgrade. If you want to stop a daemon or agent that is installed and running you use 'launchctl unload -w'. On my system the program often is restarted automatically if I don't use the "-w" disable key. Maybe this is a bug? Anyway, when I do an upgrade install, I use the disable key to stop the daemon and launch agents entirely before writing new files. If I just write the files and reboot, the disabled key is still present and the new version won't load on the next boot. I have to use launchctl to re-enable the agent, and so I have to operate in at least the "on screen" user's context. Since I cannot use launchctl to start the agent for a user who is not "on screen", I don't allow the package to be installed if there's FUS user logged in "off screen". The enable/disable key is not set for that user because launchctl errors out trying to 'su' to that user. For my package, I would anticipate a problem if the user who reinstalls or upgrades is not the same user that installed it originally (the requirement for problem is trickier than just that, but this would be part of the equation). I was using the Daemons and Agents Technical Note 2083 to figure out a lot of these kinds of things. Unfortunately the documentation is lacking in its explanation of how to correctly start an agent even though the description is present for Daemons. I did fill out the feedback on that document saying that information is missing. I don't know if it would help if more people would submit the same feedback.

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Re: Launch agent runs as root immediately after install
by Xochitl Lunde 19 Mar '10

19 Mar '10

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 <installer-dev-bounces+xochitl_lunde=tripplite.com(a)lists.apple.com> wrote on 03/19/2010 11:21:45 AM: > Yes, but it's fragile, and will probably break in future releases of > the OS. With each release of OS X, Apple makes it harder and harder > for a root process to operate in a user's context. The problem that I see is with reinstallation/upgrade. If you want to stop a daemon or agent that is installed and running you use 'launchctl unload -w'. On my system the program often is restarted automatically if I don't use the "-w" disable key. Maybe this is a bug? Anyway, when I do an upgrade install, I use the disable key to stop the daemon and launch agents entirely before writing new files. If I just write the files and reboot, the disabled key is still present and the new version won't load on the next boot. I have to use launchctl to re-enable the agent, and so I have to operate in at least the "on screen" user's context. Since I cannot use launchctl to start the agent for a user who is not "on screen", I don't allow the package to be installed if there's FUS user logged in "off screen". The enable/disable key is not set for that user because launchctl errors out trying to 'su' to that user. For my package, I would anticipate a problem if the user who reinstalls or upgrades is not the same user that installed it originally (the requirement for problem is trickier than just that, but this would be part of the equation). I was using the Daemons and Agents Technical Note 2083 to figure out a lot of these kinds of things. Unfortunately the documentation is lacking in its explanation of how to correctly start an agent even though the description is present for Daemons. I did fill out the feedback on that document saying that information is missing. I don't know if it would help if more people would submit the same feedback.

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Re: Launch agent runs as root immediately after install
by Greg Neagle 19 Mar '10

19 Mar '10

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Step 1: find a process running as the current user and get its PID: (Current username in $USER) PSOUT=`ps auxwww | grep Finder | grep $USER | grep -v grep` PID=`echo $PSOUT | cut -d" " -f2` -Greg On Mar 19, 2010, at 2:58 AM, Chris Adamson wrote: Thanks in advance. --Chris _______________________________________________ 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/greg.neagle%40disneyan… _______________________________________________ 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.… Yes, but it's fragile, and will probably break in future releases of the OS. With each release of OS X, Apple makes it harder and harder for a root process to operate in a user's context. This works only for the currently logged in user; any users logged in but switched out via fast user switching don't get to play. Step 2: use a very complicated call to launchctl to start the agent in the user's context: /bin/launchctl bsexec $PID /usr/bin/sudo -u $USER /bin/bash -c 'unset SUDO_COMMAND ; /bin/launchctl start com.myorg.mylaunchagent' I suppose you could figure out all the currently logged in users and repeat this process for each one to handle the FUS users as well. If it were me, I'd just require a logout (if I didn't care about supporting Fast User Switched users), or a restart (if it was important that everyone got the new functionality). We're installing a LaunchAgent that we want to get up and running immediately, so in a post-install script, we call "launchctl load / Library/LaunchAgents/path.to.our.agent.plist". I've noticed that this runs the agent as root, whereas the agent will run as the user on subsequent logins. Is there a way to get the agent running as the user who's performing the install, rather than root? This email sent to greg.neagle(a)disneyanimation.com This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Launch agent runs as root immediately after install
by Xochitl Lunde 19 Mar '10

19 Mar '10

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 > Hi, > > Launch the agent in all logged in user context. > for userName in `/usr/bin/users` > do > su -l $userName -c "launchctl load -S Aqua > /Library/LaunchAgents/com.yourcmpny.plist" > done > But there are some disadvantages when you have to support multiple > logged in Users at the time of Install which I have discussed in the > below link which you might want to take a look at. > http://old.nabble.com/launch_msg%28%29:-Socket-is-not-connected- > td23923855.html > > regards, > ~Arjun If this works for you I will be a little surprised. It did not work for me on SnowLeopard. When starting the agent for a user other than the one who is doing the installation, launchctl throws an error at me. However, when using the GUI installer, the environment variable $USER is set to the user who invoked the installer. If you have to use sudo to install from the command line, then maybe you can check for COMMAND_LINE_INSTALL=1 and not start the agent because your $USER will be set to root. The InstallationCheck script will get the SUDO_USER but the postinstall and preinstall won't get the SUDO_USER.

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Re: Launch agent runs as root immediately after install
by Arjun SM 19 Mar '10

19 Mar '10

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Dkim-signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=2UCE9gj0ZhFc24gbBg2pZbv2JQVBW9tP/3VIQWWJ7B0=; b=Wchd2NN9DeMZgelIGi4SGTSKZWPGrYKjG2jIFyMRn96/uaaYY1dHOvnsl7zym1YfGE NSjGImLG3XyNpyM6LlrkbdX3x7zmn6sMwQ8zPgsnvz2jV/FHaHVp2siOVcRzHCbkxrV/ 7k+K4Dz4krurnk1jD+LBpIMDWZLgMXGKNnaaY= Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; b=SyteR6FqWogR80fx93rd9Xa5yhYFJ6PWaIBdD4Il6EKWMpfhFtg+e/SQhlXsGe/j6Q fDwdDbyEN5Da2UIgb7R9DQglaxsk9R62CTvh38acupQnpBcCm+4P6FbPS4AQ+Pw/lVdO LlonLEn5DVkhbYhDm1be4kPiw7AsDcBBrsEmY= for userName in `/usr/bin/users` do su -l $userName -c "launchctl load -S Aqua /Library/LaunchAgents/com.yourcmpny.plist" done _______________________________________________ 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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Launch agent runs as root immediately after install
by Chris Adamson 19 Mar '10

19 Mar '10

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com Dkim-signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:from:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:subject:date:message-id:to:mime-version :x-mailer; bh=NT4HTvdklOtKKbn/ThKii2wncr0KxHj6rv9ty7ikvU0=; b=JmHo8tuTT2eyviEIID2xf/+kFyadoYDfiVc+8YzbgcaL+A7q0Rv3QnN/IpfVLQXUTt 7/pXspLgvUy4iZHZCP2b9Wv9VxbOP3qQtXMYe+SZM3ewngGcJKqlO9NrAyUJzl4lEBsE ew4y961DzMS8l9IAazciZUgZim0giNP4qQ4uI= Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=from:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:subject:date:message-id :to:mime-version:x-mailer; b=kRvjFhPUjiioe0vYMmkMwGLLY5U72dtVG8dZdXyIXRAK4DCA7V6eMLQh55NnK5OA2K nNTpBhUs6jmjN6kgv9R8qVZfM+ouiAazChL/53wkgYk+Ryk1LYXkKbgBXiqJtFZQGxPG 0vgTOOYSwcHrcC3uYhqaPZOoi29NtIUXoF//M= We're installing a LaunchAgent that we want to get up and running immediately, so in a post-install script, we call "launchctl load /Library/LaunchAgents/path.to.our.agent.plist". I've noticed that this runs the agent as root, whereas the agent will run as the user on subsequent logins. Is there a way to get the agent running as the user who's performing the install, rather than root? Thanks in advance. --Chris _______________________________________________ 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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