Confusion with composer 9.72

[intueri]

Hi,

We have implemented Casper as our imaging and update solution option about 1 week ago and I am learning to drive it but having a few issues that i cant find clarity around so I thought id post a question and would really appreciate anyone taking the time to get back to me.

When we implemented Casper we were taken through the composer and had a lesson on creating dmg and pkg's. We had a clean machine and downloaded the latest version of flash and installed it before opening the composer and creating the dmg, This was then dragged into the Casper Admin application and saved. I then created a policy that included the flash dmg created in composer to scope to only my test machine and all went well. The dmg installed correctly.

I then tried to simply copy the latest java update dmg into the admin app and follow the same steps but i notice that the java update doesnt install and it is simply copies to the hard drive of the machine in the scope - what am i doing wrong here? Im thinking maybe i have to install the java update on the machine and then create the dmg via composer?

Any advice really appreciated here.

Kind regards :)

Johnson

[karthikeyan_mac]

Hi John,

Open the downloaded Java DMG and upload the package inside the DMG to Casper Admin. Java DMG downloaded from the webpage will not directly work with Casper Policy.

Thanks & Regards,
Karthikeyan M

[intueri]

Hi, thanks very much for your response. I appreciate that information greatly.

Kind regards
Johnson

[donmontalvo]

Might also want to peruse (and bookmark!) Rich Trouton's java blogs.

Hey @karthikeyan.mac are you coming to JNUC2015? If so we can finally have that beer/coffee/tea/water!

[bpavlov]

@intueri While the advice you've gotten regarding Java is good, I would just add something in general to packaging: not every DMG contains an .app. Some contain a .pkg or an .mpkg. Some contain an .app that contain a .pkg embedded inside the app container (right-click the .app and show package contents and did around, usually there is a pkg in there unless the vendor really went with a proprietary app installer).

Sometimes you can easily just drag that pkg into Casper Admin and it should deploy, but sometimes it doesn't which requires digging a little deeper and looking at pre-install/flight or post-install/flight scripts.

Lastly, generally speaking you will want to be modular in how you package things up. That is if you need to package up settings or licensing you may want to consider packaging it up separately from the main application to make it easier in the event of application updates. This way you don't have to worry about re-packaging the licensing/settings/etc. each time an application update comes out.

[mm2270]

Hold on a second! @intueri Are you saying that whomever did your JumpStart training had you open Composer, start a snapshot, then install Flash Player and build that into a DMG? Really?? Honestly, if that's what you were taught, you were given gross misinformation in my opinion and I am sorry to hear that. Snapshotting should be a last resort. I think many of us here would agree to that statement. It has its uses, but most installer "packages" come in a valid package format these days and can be used as-is dragged into Casper Admin. There are some exceptions, but the general rule is that if what you download opens Installer.app when you double click on it, try using it just as is thrown into Casper Admin before ever trying to capture it in Composer. There not much reason to recapture these, and I seriously cannot understand why this whole snapshotting method continues to be taught by either JAMF or JAMF's JumpStart partners if there is not a valid reason for it. Yes, it can be taught, but it should be the last thing you learn if you ask me.

Think about it like this- stepping into your "user" shoes, if you download an installer from a vendor's website, do you pick it apart, figuring out what files it drops on your system and manually dragging them into place? Or do you just run the installer they provided and let it do the heavy lifting? The answer is obvious, yes? So why then is the same basic principle not being taught to new Casper Suite admins? I just don't get it.

[endor-moon]

Hi mm2270, I agree and find the whole concept of creating packages using Composer hopelessly naive. Simply comparing the file system before and after an install to create a 'snapshot' of what has changed makes assumptions that are patently ridiculous. However, we need to pressure developers to use flat packages and avoid crazy app installers.

I'm relatively new to Casper, coming up on our one year anniversary but I believe I can safely say that the best thing about Casper is JAMF Nation and this community for sharing information among our fellow Mac system admins. So thank you for jumping in, and thanks to the whole community here.

Cheers...

[donmontalvo]

We use Composer (Yosemite ready) and/or fseventer (not Yosemite ready yet) for snapshots. But only for analysis. Snapshots can't deal with file merges, and you end up capturing/deploying stuff that has nothing to do with the install. I can't think of a better way to blow up your Mac environment than to snapshot and deploy.

Over the years I've reached out directly with the software maker. Most of the time they understand and want to help. Sometimes they don't care, or they're close to sinking so can't afford a capable/competent Mac developer to write a proper drag install app or silently deployable package.

I love that Composer exists, it can do a lot...but can be dangerous if you don't first learn packaging.

Installer-Dev list
##osx-server IRC

Lots of good info here too...like don't do snapshots unless you REALLY know what you're doing...

HTH
Don

[intueri · Accepted solution]

Thanks everyone. Really appreciate the feedback here.

Kind regards

[Chris_Hafner]

I'm not exactly sure what happened during your jumpstart. I tend to really like Composer for a number of reasons but taking a snapshot of a flash install is as bad as everyone here has pointed out. Primarily because you can get the administrator installer .pkg right from Adobe that can simply be dragged into Casper Admin. However, I've always had great luck with Composer and snapshots to capture really awkward MS Office installs. They do require massaging after, don't get me wrong. However, being able to track down all the little bits of a crazy installer, as @donmontalvo mentions is great! I also use this feature to track licensing files and repackage them, after adjusting permissions and dealing with any postflight scripts if I need to. Each tool in it's place. Though as @mm2270 mentioned, if the software developers got off their butts and sorted out their installer packages almost none of this would be necessary one way or another.