site_archiver@lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev@lists.apple.com User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.14; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.9.1 * Requirement: * Solution consisted of: NSURLSessionDataTask *postDataTask = [commonSession dataTaskWithRequest:request completionHandler:^(NSData *data, NSURLResponse *response, NSError *error) {        if (!data)         {             // No Connection here try an alternate             NSURLSessionDataTask *postDataTask444 = [ commonSession dataTaskWithRequest:request completionHandler:^(NSData *data, NSURLResponse *response, NSError *error) {                 if(!data)                 {                    // No Connection on 2nd try so try another alternate                     NSURLSessionDataTask *postDataTask9292 = [ commonSession dataTaskWithRequest:request completionHandler:^(NSData *data, NSURLResponse *response, NSError *error) {                         if(!data)                         {                            // Failed again so we'll give up.                         } else {                             // Finally got a response on 3rd so deal with results.                         }                     }];                     [postDataTask9292 resume];                 } else {                     // Got the response on the 2nd Try so deal with results.                 }             }];             [postDataTask444 resume]         }         else         {             // Got a Reponse on the first try so deal with results.         }     }];     [postDataTask resume];  dispatch_semaphore_t sema = dispatch_semaphore_create(0);           [self _doURLMethodAbove:session::^(BOOL success){             leave = success;             dispatch_semaphore_signal(sema);         }];         dispatch_semaphore_wait(sema, DISPATCH_TIME_FOREVER); NSBundle * myself = [NSBundle bundleForClass:[self class]]; NSString * postpath = [myself pathForResource:@"myscript" ofType:@""]; //gives me a handle on the script firmly rooted in the context of the plug-in (i.e. I knew where it was) - (BOOL) runProcessAsAdministrator:(NSString*)scriptPath                      withArguments:(NSArray *)arguments                             output:(NSString **)output                   errorDescription:(NSString **)errorDescription {     NSString * allArgs = [arguments componentsJoinedByString:@" "];     NSString * fullScript = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"'%@' %@", scriptPath, allArgs];     NSDictionary *errorInfo = [NSDictionary new];     NSString *script =  [NSString stringWithFormat:@"do shell script \"%@\" with administrator privileges", fullScript];     NSAppleScript *appleScript = [[NSAppleScript new] initWithSource:script];     NSAppleEventDescriptor * eventResult = [appleScript executeAndReturnError:&errorInfo];     // Check errorInfo     if (! eventResult)     {         // Describe common errors         *errorDescription = nil;         if ([errorInfo valueForKey:NSAppleScriptErrorNumber])         {             NSNumber * errorNumber = (NSNumber *)[errorInfo valueForKey:NSAppleScriptErrorNumber];             if ([errorNumber intValue] == -128)                 *errorDescription = @"The administrator password is required to do this.";         }         // Set error message from provided message         if (*errorDescription == nil)         {             if ([errorInfo valueForKey:NSAppleScriptErrorMessage])                 *errorDescription =  (NSString *)[errorInfo valueForKey:NSAppleScriptErrorMessage];         }         return NO;     }     else     {         // Set output to the AppleScript's output         *output = [eventResult stringValue];         return YES;     } } Usage example:     NSString * output = nil;     NSString * processErrorDescription = nil;     BOOL success = [self runProcessAsAdministrator:@"/usr/bin/id"                     withArguments:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"-un", nil]                            output:&output                             errorDescription:&processErrorDescription];     if (!success) // Process failed to run     {          // ...look at errorDescription     }     else     {          // ...process output     } Anyhow hope this helps someone in the future. Colin _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.... This email sent to site_archiver@lists.apple.com Ok folks, it's not 100% what I was hoping to accomplish but I've managed to achieve my Installer Plug-In goals...so thought I'd share the results with everyone and maybe help someone else out in the future. I had never done Objective-C before, nor written a plugin in OSX etc so took more time that it should of and seasoned pro's likely could have done this in a day...so trying to help any future newbies. Obviously it was all learning so evening binding variables from the .nib to the plug-in etc were all new to me, but the items below were the biggest challenges. Needed another Installer screen (via Plug-in) that requested a 3 parameters, these were then sent to Web Services Requests for verification.  The verification's were also a series of HTTPS calls that needed to be in order.  Upon being verified these same parameters were to be used to get some additional information. The big issue here is that the 3 parameters could be considered somewhat sensitive, so I didn't want them sticking around on a filesystem even in temp space. So I had my Plug-In call it's own script that utilizes the sensitive bits and that script put the results - which were not so sensitive - into a fixed temp spaces where the postinstall script could use them. Not perfect but as far as I could tell with the Plug-In essentially acting like it's own sand-boxed process there was a walled garden around it that I couldn't cross to/from the parent Installer.app process. Complete code is not included just what for me where the key obstacle type bits.... Encapsulating  a series of  NSUrlSessionTasks that cascaded within each others completionHandlers blocks to provider the order of operations. This was because the verification could be done over a series of possible configurations so needed to try 1 if that failed then try a second etc etc. * Now of course these are async requests to to make sure they actually happened in order I had to wrap the whole method in a semaphore * Now having verified the 3 parameters I made a bunch of other calls in similiar fashion to the above. Once that was done I needed to call a script with these parameters as arguments. But how to reference the script? where is the script? etc. Turns out I put the script as a resource in the Plug-In and then could refer to it consistently by way of: * Now Execute the script...I didn't need elevated permissions to run this but it can be done with the right syntax to the AppleScript object. This code was courtesy of Carlos P via Michael from stackoverflow....this is a bit of a Hack but |AuthorizationExecuteWithPrivileges()|  has been deprecated and frankly for what I needed and my Obj-C level getting in the new Job/Service management frameworks just to run a script now()...well...call me lazy. And that was it. This script call above moved stuff into a /private/tmp directory and my postinstaller script picked them up from there then deleted them. If there was some way to share variables or even just the sandbox of the parent Installer.app that would be great, but seems there isn't...it may be just me but on one hand the use of a full blown plug-in this context is great because you have the entire toolkit of Obj-C do achieve what you want, but being so disconnected from the overall Installer process seems a major miss.