Has anyone successfully deployed AutoCAD 2013?

[jps3]

I spent at least seven hours yesterday trying to figure out how to best deploy AutoCAD for Mac 2013 (via Munki). It was an incredibly frustrating experience. I had hoped it would be as simple as pointing it to our license server, but apparently that's not it. (I did find the licpath.lic file but simply adding that in after a command line install did not work.)

Summary of tests:

1. Re-imaged a Mac Pro with default lab image and configuration via my usual DeployStudio, Munki, etc workflow.
2. First Install: Manual, via GUI, to check functionality. 
1. Manually entered network licensing information. 
2. When finished AutoDesk 2013.app launched fine, no obvious problems.
3. Noted existence of /Applications/.../AutoDesk 2013.app/Contents/licpath.lic which appeared promising. Copied to another machine in case useful.
3. (Wiped, re-imaged as per #1)
4. Second Install: Manual, via command line. 
1. AutoDesk 2013.app would not launch, icon would bounce for awhile then disappear. No error messages given, nothing obvious showing in syslog. (That's helpful, thanks Autodesk.)
2. Used pkgutil to 'lsbom' the packages to see if I saw anything obvious to do a command line licensing.
3. Tried copying licpath.lic back into the *.app folder and re-launched app. Same behavior as #1, no difference. No syslog entries. (Not seeing any other logs anywhere.)
4. Noted that many of the installers packages seem to be related to licensing system. Files/folders placed in /usr/local/share, /Library/Preferences, etc.
5. Playing with the installer package:
1. Tried to see what choices were in the installer package using "% installer -target / -pkg /path/to/pkg -showChoiceChangesXML". Helpfully, the choices are named "choice1," "choice11" and similar. (choice11 seems to deactivate the package that adds to the Dock).
2. The main package's plugins section has the licensing/registration panel.
6. (Wiped, re-imaged as per #1)
7. Third Install: Attempt to try to find diffs between "licensed" and "unlicensed" using JAMF Composer (we don't use Casper, I just use Composer from time to time to help with certain packaging)
1. Installed AutoCAD for Mac 2013 via command line as per Second Install so it would be "unlicensed." Launched app and it failed silently as expected.
2. Started JAMF Composer and started a "New & Modified Snapshot" package. Let Composer perform scan of disk contents before continuing.
3. Launched GUI installer of AutoCAD package, it complained that it was already installed and quit.
4. I moved the /Applications/Autodesk folder to the Trash temporarily, and re-launched the GUI installer. Once the pre-checks were complete, but before continuing with remainder of install, I replaced folder from Trash to original location.
5. I continued with GUI installer and entered network licensing information when asked.
6. When complete I launched AutoCAD application and it worked fine.
7. Continued with Composer to let it perform second disk scan to find new/modified files. (See screen capture below to see what files it ultimately found and which I created a "licensing package" for)
8. (Wiped, re-imaged per #1)
9. Fourth Install: Attempt to install application and licensing package via command line
1. Installed AutoCAD pkg via remote ssh. Completed without error.
2. Installed the licensing pkg (created at end of Third Install above) via remote ssh. Completed without error.
3. Logged into console as admin user. Launched AutoCAD 2013.app and it worked fine.
10. (Wiped, re-imaged per #1)
11. Fifth Install: Attempt install via Munki
1. Imported AutoCAD pkg into Munki, where our hero discovers horrifically sloppy packages (no version strings, or simply "1"). Adds installer_choices_xml section to remove choice11 (Dock icon) and comments out dict for com.autodesk.autocad2013.dockicon.pkg in receipts section.
2. Imported the licensing pkg into Munki as update_for AutoCAD
3. Adds AutoCAD to managed_installs section of test mac pro's manifest.
4. Both packages install without error. App launches fine.
5. (Did not try this on another machine, so do not know if licensing pkg files will work on other hardware yet.)

What is not tested yet:

• Will the licensing package I created work on another machine?

The Important Bits — Questions!

1. Is there a way to activate licensing for AutoCAD for Mac 2013 via command line? 
• I see an LMU.app and an LTU.app. LTU just appears to be used to transfer a license (not sure what exactly that's doing, but doesn't appear to be a solution to this problem).
  
2. Does anyone have any experience with submitting feature requests/bug reports to Autodesk? I have a few suggestions for them about enterprise packaging and deployment…

[Gregory Neagle]

We don't have any licenses for AutoCAD Mac.

But what you've found/posted implies that its licensing mechanism is very similar to that for Maya, MotionBuilder, and Mudbox.

One or more of those has been described here. Try a search for those in the list archive.

The command-line licensing tool you are looking for is adlmreg.

-Greg

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[jps3]

No such luck. I'd neglected to mention in my original post that I'd found your posting here about Maya 2013 and tried to look for similar solution. (Apologies.)

Still looking around for anything looking vaguely similar to that, however. Will post back here if I find anything.

Damn. For such a big company and expensive product, it's sloppy packaging. Not that I haven't seen it before. There's probably a Law here about this always happening for the big apps that there's pressure to deploy and is expensive... Neagle’s Law? :-)

[Gregory Neagle]

Start looking at the resources and scripts of the component packages.

-Greg

[jps3]

Quick comment while picking through the AutoCAD packages and scripts... Some great material for CodeSOD in there...

[jps3]

I could not find anything that remotely appeared to be a means to activate/manage licensing for AutoCAD for Mac 2013 via command line. I dug through everything I could find via all of the (sub)pkg BOMs, anything changed/copied/added via a pre/post* pkg script, etc. Lots of false leads, but nothing that appeared to do what I'd hoped. It really does appear that the only thing that sets up the licensing information is the GUI installer registration plugin.

My workaround, for now, for testing, which I'm sure is a “brittle” solution, was to do a CLI installation (ie. no licensing). Run JAMF Composer to perform a "New and Modified" filesystem scan. Then installed via GUI package. (Checked that AutoCAD app launched successfully). Then ran the Composer follow-up scan. I located some files that changed, put those in their own package and added that to Munki as an update to the main pkg.

That seems to work, insofar as it's deployable via Munki and launches on 4-5 different test machines (all same 2008 Mac Pro model, but it's a start).

-Jason

P.S. How many ® symbols can Autodesk® work into any® document® or web® page® anyway™? (It's like every other word they slap the ® symbol onto.)