Adobe releases Acrobat provisioning tool

A christmas miracle?!

I was half expecting this one to be on the vaporware shelf next to Duke
Nukem Forever.

:)
-- Jared F. Nichols
Desktop Engineer, Client Services
Information Services Department
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
244 Wood Street
Lexington, Massachusetts 02420
781.981.5436

Hi William,

That's awesome, great work btw! We've begun pushing Adobe CS5 Master Collection to a bunch of users, and it includes Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.

I'd love to hear about experiences in pushing Adobe Acrobat Pro X to users who have 9 installed (concurrent install). I know Adobe recommends against running multiple versions of Adobe Reader, but they have OK'd deploying multiple versions of Acrobat Pro.

Don

I believe in Diablo III. I believe in Diablo III. I believe in Diablo III.

--

William Smith
Technical Analyst
Merrill Communications LLC
(651) 632-1492

William,

I've had the same issue with Acrobat X that I've had with Office with pkg
installs under 10.5 (at this point I'm abandoning all pkg installs the
include postflight scripts). I've changed my installation method to a DMG
that copies the installer, choices file, and provisioning tool to a temp
folder. After that I have the script that Adobe provides and it installs
with no problems at all. This way I can guarantee that it works for 10.6
and 10.5, at least here.

I've read some people are having issues with suppressing Updates, but I
have not tried this yet (especially since there have not been any updates
from Adobe yet).

Don - the few installs that have been done so far, have been on machines
running Acrobat 9 and CS5, and so far I've seen no issues at all.

Allen

Well...I went to the link William provided and clicked on the 'Adobe
Provisioning Tool (Mac)' link to here:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobat/mac/10.x/10.0.0/misc/

And then I clicked to download the DMG here:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobat/mac/10.x/10.0.0/misc/AcroProv1000_en_
US.dmg

And then I mounted the DMG and clicked on what's inside and it does
nothing. I get the warning this was downloaded from the internet are you
sure you want to open it security message...then nothing.

Buzz kill. There any documentation on how this thing is suppose to work?
Didn't really see anything in the other guides. Anyone used it
successfully? Am I missing something obvious here?

I was expecting some sort of GUI quite honestly, and then I see all this
command line information in my console. This appears to be something I
need to run after I've pushed out the software?

12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] Copyright 2009
Adobe Systems Incorporated
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] All rights
reserved.
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] adobe_provisionin
g_tool version: 1.0 Release (1.2.0.13,1.0)
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] usage:
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] adobe_provisionin
g_tool -C -a <AMT folder path> -s <Serial Number>
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] This is to
validate the serial number against the application.sif file.
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] The caller is
expected to pass the clear serial number w/o any dashes ('-').
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] The AMT folder path should contain the following files.
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] a) application.xml
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] b) application.sif
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] c) SLConfig.xml
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] d) aul.xml
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] adobe_provisionin
g_tool -V -p <payload code> -s <Serial Number> -g <logfile path>
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] This is to
validate the serial number against the application.sif file.
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] The caller is
expected to pass the clear serial number.
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] adobe_provisionin
g_tool -E -e <LEID> -l <locale> 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] This is to set
the EULA Acceptance flags in the cache.db (Cache PCD). 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] adobe_provisionin
g_tool -S -a <XML file path> 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] This is to set
the EULA Suppression flag in the pcd.db (Master PCD).
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] You need to run
this tool in 'sudo' mode. 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] adobe_provisioning_tool -R -a <XML file path> 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] This is used to
suppress Registration and extended profile creation nags.
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] You need admin
privileges to run this option. 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] adobe_provisioning_tool -M -a <XML file path> 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] This is used to
suppress Updates by setting Suppression Flag in the pcd.db
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] This option suppresses updates for Driver payload as well as App
payload. 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] You need admin
privileges to run this option. 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] This tool should be run only after App. installation.
12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] 12/28/10 2:53:52 PM [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.adobe_provisioning_tool[1272] Status=0

I guess I'll just have to go old school package route on Acrobat Pro X for
the time being...

Craig E

Craig,

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/837/cpsid_83709/attachments/Acrobat_Enterprise_Adm
inistration.pdf is the link for the enterprise PDF (page 89). It contains
a script that installs and applies the correct settings. I've been using
it for some time now and I've had no issues.

Thanks
Allen

I see the information under ARD. I had the file already. Thanks for making
me look at it again to find that.

Craig E

Hi Craig,

The Adobe Provisioning Toolkit Enterprise Edition (APTEE) for the CS5
suite works in the same way. Not sure why the developers decided to
compile it as a non-functioning application. But the tool is embedded,
just need to script your command to target it.

Maybe the developers at Adobe are planning to continue building the
tool so it's a full functioning GUI? Personally, I wish they'd go in
the other direction and simply provide a binary we can push and
trigger with a script.

Don

I was able to build this using Composer and it works fine for me with only slight mods to the script found in the enterprise guide here:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/837/cpsid_83709/attachments/Acrobat_Enterprise_Administration.pdf

basically.. i skipped over the ZIPing part, just threw the pkg and provisioning app into tmp and deleted off the first lines of the script in the guide - and then let OSX handle the clean up. Provided I make sure this script is run post-install via Casper Imaging, all is well.. and ARD plays nice too, and it didn't run over any other serials for our Master Collection installs.

If you are having other issues, I'm more than happy to get more specific.

Still -- I am less than impressed that Acrobat X continues to not function correctly in network homes, although a part of it does seem to respect folder redirection for the ~/Library/Cache common workaround... I'm frankly still aghast this is a problem given that so much attention was paid to this issue in 9 (and at least had a workaround that wasn't too awful)... I wish the left hand knew what the right hand was doing at Adobe... for as many things work with Network Homes... a bunch of other inexplicably do not...

Michael Crispin
Duke University

Well, that wasn't so bad after all. Works well for fresh imaging, haven't
delved into existing installs.

1) Packaged up the adobe_provisioning_tool.app in /Volumes/Macintosh
HD/Applications/Adobe/ since CS5 ends up putting a bunch of random stuff
there anyway.
2) Dropped the Adobe Reader X Installer.pkg into Admin and set to install
on boot volume with priority 11
3) Dropped the Adobe Acrobat X Pro Installer.pkg into Admin and set to
install on boot volume with priority 12
4) Made a script that runs At Reboot that:

#!/bin/sh

"/Volumes/Macintosh
HD/Applications/Adobe/adobe_provisioning_tool.app/Contents/MacOS/adobe_prov
isioning_tool" -C -a "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat 10
AMT/AMT" -s <serial number no hyphens here>

"/Volumes/Macintosh
HD/Applications/Adobe/adobe_provisioning_tool.app/Contents/MacOS/adobe_prov
isioning_tool" -S -a "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat 10
AMT/AMT"

"/Volumes/Macintosh
HD/Applications/Adobe/adobe_provisioning_tool.app/Contents/MacOS/adobe_prov
isioning_tool" -R -a "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat 10
AMT/AMT"

5) Then for labs I do have a FUT package to eliminate prompts that was
just a simple Composer capture of the Reader Agree button being pressed,
disabling Updater preferences for Reader, default PDF reader check box for
Reader, disabling Updater preferences for Pro, and default PDF check box
for Pro.

I have CS5 stuff install after these on the boot volume.

Thus far, a lot less painful than any version before it...only time will
tell.

Craig E

Some how Adobe claims that put the script in to your package as
postinstall, but I had to put it as postflight as below to get it
working...also I had to tweak with the script too.
I have put both "Adobe Acrobat X Pro Installer.pkg" and
adobe_provisioning_tool.app" in /private/tmp folder in Composer (note:
below s/n for Adobe is not real).

#!/bin/sh
## postflight

installer -pkg "/private/tmp/Adobe Acrobat X Pro Installer.pkg" -target /
/bin/sleep 5 #allow some time

"/private/tmp/adobe_provisioning_tool.app/Contents/MacOS/adobe_provisioning
_tool" -C -a "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat 10 AMT/AMT" -s
1118-0195-6810-7883-7652-7668

"/private/tmp/adobe_provisioning_tool.app/Contents/MacOS/adobe_provisioning
_tool" -S -a "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat 10 AMT/AMT"

"/private/tmp/adobe_provisioning_tool.app/Contents/MacOS/adobe_provisioning
_tool" -R -a "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat 10 AMT/AMT"

rm -rf /private/tmp/adobe_provisioning_tool.app && rm -rf
"/private/tmp/Adobe Acrobat X Pro Installer.pkg"

exit 0 ## Success
exit 1 ## Failure

I hope this helps for some one...

Cem

Little bit more info...
I wanted to create a stand alone package so Service Desk guys can install
it easily by just selecting the package and Mac from Casper Remote or even
using ARD.

Only packaged it for 10.6 and now I have tested on 10.5.8...all works for
me :)

Ok, local install works for mac running 10.5.8 but Casper Remote method mysteriously not working...

Both methods work for mac running 10.6.5.

Sent from my iPhone

Hi,

I followed the same method as Cem Baykara recommended in below mail to package the Adobe Acrobat X Pro. But when I launch after install, it does not suppress EULA, asks for the serial number again.

Also, I followed the procedure from the Acrobat Enterprise Administration guide mentioned in page 91. I have the same issue. As soon I launch, it asks for License Agreement and Serial Number.

I have tried by Pushing through ARD, to logged in and logged our users. And I tried installing the package manually in the target machine.

Does anybody face this issue or any solutions to this?

Thanks & Regards,
Karthikeyan

The script you've quoted is malformed due to line wrapping applied by
On 6/20/11 9:39 AM, "Karthikeyan M" <karthikeyan.mac at gmail.com> wrote:
email. Have you made sure to correct the lines or are you possibly trying
to use this script as you see it?

--

William Smith
Technical Analyst
Merrill Communications LLC
(651) 632-1492

so this is an old thread. is there a newer better faster stronger method to the Acrobat Pro X packaging madness?