Posted on 07-10-2014 10:23 AM
so there seems to be several (old) threads about the pros vs. cons of packaging composer installers via .pkg or .dmg. We currently use .dmg's (per my guidance due to our packaging team being windows based). Just curious as to who's doing what and why?
Thanks in advance.
Posted on 07-10-2014 10:56 AM
I have four different approaches, depending on the specific package:
Posted on 07-10-2014 11:49 AM
Our standard is .pkg with the following two exceptions:
We leverage pre- and post-flight scripts heavily at my company, so dmg just doesn't cut it. We also make it a practice to package an uninstaller with every installer, so indexing for the purpose of uninstalling is not necessary, but it is useful in other scenarios.
I also find that Caspers logging ability, as far as software installation goes, is woefully inadequate as CR and CI logs will simply tell you if the install passed or failed (this goes for pkg and dmg packages - usually with a pkg though, it will give you SOME sort of indicator as to what/where it failed, but not always). The difference here is that with pkgs, I have the install.log file that I can look through for failures, script results, etc. No equivalent on the dmg side of things. Error reporting/capturing/handling are of paramount importance to me as a Mac admin.
@easyedc][/url, curious - why does packaging as a dmg have anything to do with your team being windows based?
Posted on 07-10-2014 05:39 PM
I tend to prefer .pkg so that I can also use it in my DeployStudio workflows. If I need FEU/FUT then that's the only reason I use .dmg.
Posted on 07-11-2014 05:41 AM
@acdesigntech][/url the windows based comment is more designed to be that they don't understand much about OS X administration and we get a lot of errors (permissions, ownership, legacy/dead files, other things). If I were 100% responsible for everything Mac related, it would probably be a different approach, however, we're a large organization with specific roles for various aspects of workstation management.
The approach that they use is that they will normally just install the software to make sure it doesn't crash their machine, at which point they run the snapshot function and don't clean up after themselves or look at all files that get installed.
Posted on 07-11-2014 07:48 AM
I am a huge fan of portability and easy modification. For that reason, I always go with packages, and I handle any additional functionality with postflight scripts if I need to populate user profiles. Packages work in literally any scenario, where DMGs don't.
The only time I use DMGs is if I am mounting and opening one to present files to the user, if they need to take action.
Posted on 07-11-2014 08:26 AM
You really have to cook up both and see which tastes better in your kitchen.
Composer dmgs are convenient for attaching user prefs, but otherwise very limiting in use.
Unmodified vendor packages whenever possible to retain the vendor provided voodoo.
Adding Postflight scripts in custom packages is a huge convenience at times.
And the big one for me is that packages can be used with ease outside of the Casper sphere.