BitRock InstallBuilder

[Greg Neagle]

I came across a new type of installer today.

We use a digital sculpting and painting program by Pixlogic called ZBrush.

ZBrush 4 was released in Apple package format.
ZBrush 4R2 and ZBrush 4R3 were released as drag-n-drop disk images.
ZBrush 4R4 was released as an application that did the install.

Digging a little deeper, I discovered that this app was built using BitRock InstallBuilder.

The website for this product is here: http://installbuilder.bitrock.com

I was encouraged when I found this: http://answers.bitrock.com/questions/41/how-can-i-perform-a-silent-installation
and this: http://installbuilder.bitrock.com/docs/installbuilder-userguide.html#_unattended_mode

A little more experimenting, and I was able to do a silent install and uninstall without repackaging.

I munkiimported the installer as a drag-n-drop disk image. This causes Munki to copy the installer to /Applications. A postinstall_script then runs the installer in unattended mode:

#!/bin/sh
"/Applications/ZBrush 4R4 Installer OSX FL.app/Contents/MacOS/osx-intel" --mode unattended
rc=$?
/bin/rm -r "/Applications/ZBrush 4R4 Installer OSX FL.app"
exit $rc

The installation process creates an Uninstall.app. It turns out this can be executed in the same way, so I then created an uninstall_script:

#!/bin/sh
"/Applications/ZBrushOSX 4R4 FL/Uninstall/Uninstall ZBrush.app/Contents/MacOS/osx-intel" --mode unattended
rc=$?
/bin/rm -r "/Applications/ZBrushOSX 4R4 FL"
exit $rc

I also needed to modify the installs array to refer to the application installed by the BitRock installer instead of the installer application itself.

The final pkginfo looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>autoremove</key>
<false/>
<key>catalogs</key>
<array>
<string>production</string>
</array>
<key>description</key>
<string>Digital sculpting and painting software by Pixelogic</string>
<key>display_name</key>
<string>ZBrush 4R4</string>
<key>installer_item_hash</key>
<string>90ebd62f968a6f74aa87ff2b8eb3f742c1bf06e89d9e1b99df9e2e7e50aca6a0</string>
<key>installer_item_location</key>
<string>apps/ZBrush_4R4_Installer_OSX_FL.dmg</string>
<key>installer_item_size</key>
<integer>736284</integer>
<key>installer_type</key>
<string>copy_from_dmg</string>
<key>installs</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string>ZBrushOSX</string>
<key>CFBundleName</key>
<string>ZBrushOSX</string>
<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>4.4</string>
<key>path</key>
<string>/Applications/ZBrushOSX 4R4 FL/ZBrush.app</string>
<key>type</key>
<string>application</string>
</dict>
</array>
<key>items_to_copy</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>destination_path</key>
<string>/Applications</string>
<key>source_item</key>
<string>ZBrush 4R4 Installer OSX FL.app</string>
</dict>
</array>
<key>minimum_os_version</key>
<string>10.6.0</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>ZBrush4R4</string>
<key>postinstall_script</key>
<string>#!/bin/sh
"/Applications/ZBrush 4R4 Installer OSX FL.app/Contents/MacOS/osx-intel" --mode unattended
rc=$?
/bin/rm -r "/Applications/ZBrush 4R4 Installer OSX FL.app"
exit $rc
</string>
<key>uninstall_method</key>
<string>uninstall_script</string>
<key>uninstall_script</key>
<string>#!/bin/sh
"/Applications/ZBrushOSX 4R4 FL/Uninstall/Uninstall ZBrush.app/Contents/MacOS/osx-intel" --mode unattended
rc=$?
/bin/rm -r "/Applications/ZBrushOSX 4R4 FL"
exit $rc
</string>
<key>uninstallable</key>
<true/>
<key>version</key>
<string>4.4</string>
</dict>
</plist>

[Edward Marczak]

I came across Bitrock a little while ago and thought the interesting
bit was that it looks like it lets you create Apple installers from
non-Apple platforms.

--
Edward Marczak
w: http://www.radiotope.com/writing
p: http://profiles.google.com/edwardmarczak

[Greg Neagle]

On Aug 28, 2012, at 11:27 AM, Edward Marczak wrote:

> I came across Bitrock a little while ago and thought the interesting
> bit was that it looks like it lets you create Apple installers from
> non-Apple platforms.

Well, not Apple installer packages, but installation applications that run on the Mac.

-Greg

[Edward Marczak]

Their page isn't specific about it:

http://installbuilder.bitrock.com/installbuilder.html

It's too bad that it doesn't create Apple packages.

[Per Olofsson]

30 aug 2012 kl. 05:37 skrev Edward Marczak <mar...@radiotope.com>:

> Their page isn't specific about it:
>
> http://installbuilder.bitrock.com/installbuilder.html
>
> It's too bad that it doesn't create Apple packages.

I've been looking at creating genuine Apple packages using cross-platform tools, but I haven't found a way to create bom files. The format is complex, undocumented, and I haven't found an open source implementation of lsbom or mkbom.

--
Per Olofsson
System Administrator, IT-services, University of Gothenburg

[Edward Marczak]

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 2:27 AM, Per Olofsson <per.ol...@gu.se> wrote:
>
> 30 aug 2012 kl. 05:37 skrev Edward Marczak <mar...@radiotope.com>:
>
>> Their page isn't specific about it:
>>
>> http://installbuilder.bitrock.com/installbuilder.html
>>
>> It's too bad that it doesn't create Apple packages.
>
>
> I've been looking at creating genuine Apple packages using cross-platform tools, but I haven't found a way to create bom files. The format is complex, undocumented, and I haven't found an open source implementation of lsbom or mkbom.

I just started looking at that, too. I gave it a few hours, and then
went on a family vacation...I can now start looking at it again. That
said, I did make a little progress. The header is pretty clear, but
using several bom files, I'm starting to understand the rest of the
format, too. I'd love to have an open source mkbom.

Happy to collaborate.

[Per Olofsson]

30 aug 2012 kl. 14:03 skrev Edward Marczak:

> On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 2:27 AM, Per Olofsson <per.ol...@gu.se> wrote:
>>
>> I've been looking at creating genuine Apple packages using cross-platform tools, but I haven't found a way to create bom files. The format is complex, undocumented, and I haven't found an open source implementation of lsbom or mkbom.
>
> I just started looking at that, too. I gave it a few hours, and then
> went on a family vacation...I can now start looking at it again. That
> said, I did make a little progress. The header is pretty clear, but
> using several bom files, I'm starting to understand the rest of the
> format, too. I'd love to have an open source mkbom.

Stephane Sudre posted a link to an incomplete implementation of lsbom on the installer-dev list:

https://cauldrondevelopment.com/svn/osxbom/trunk/

There are a few gaps still, but it looks like it might be enough to assemble a valid bom file.

--
Per Olofsson, IT-service, University of Gothenburg

[Edward Marczak]

Oh, well...*that* saves a lot of time! At least it matches what I've
worked out so far. And yes, that will make it *loads* easier.

Thanks.