Packaging and Deploying Google Chrome

applesupport-ne
New Contributor III

I'm using Composer to package chrome:

  1. Open composer and Take Snapshot
  2. Install chrome set default home page and activate automatic update
  3. Take Final Snapshot

At this point all is well, but I noticed under users is the username of the account I used to take the snapshot with in this case is "DesktopAdmin". My question is, how can I build a package that I can configure and it will deploy under another user account in this case it will be "User1" and still keep the configurations I made?

I just want to add that I literally have started using JAMF SUITE for 1 week only and I only had the 2 day training.

6 REPLIES 6

bpavlov
Honored Contributor

Don't package up Google Chrome that way. Read this thread and search for other similar threads on JAMF Nation:
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=14157

htse
Contributor III

I would strongly suggest you separate your application files and your application settings.

Composer Snapshots are much too time-consuming and inefficient. Snapshots are generated by watching file changes in the file system, and then outputting the difference as the output. You end up with a number of unwanted cruft, because of normal system activity. I would only use Composer Snapshots as a last resort, if the installation process was so poorly conceived.

If this was something you had to regularly update, you'd be repeating it every single time

McAwesome
Valued Contributor

@NGKF Once you're feeling a bit more comfortable with Casper in general, I'd suggest you check out AutoPkgr. It can build new versions on a regular schedule for you. It definitely takes some getting used to, but it's quite a powerful tool. I have it set to build Firefox, Chrome, Office updates, Flash, Java, and a bunch of other things.

mm2270
Legendary Contributor III

Agreed on the advice above. There's really no need to use a Composer snapshot for something like Google Chrome, and most applications for that matter. I can count of one hand the number of times I use a snapshot per year, and some of them are for just determining what files get modified or created during some system level changes, not to actually build a package from.

I would also say to look at AutoPkg and AutoPkgr as well, especially for items that are being revved frequently to new versions. It will make things much easier to deal with for these apps.

As an aside, I just put up a small application I built using Platypus and some bash/Applescript scripting, which is based on this very good hint from @neilatosi on this Feature Request thread - https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/featureRequest.html?id=3719
I named it "App Packager" and you can find it here. Its designed as a simple alternative to using Composer for these simple drag and drop apps. It works much faster than using Composer for them. I hope JAMF adds some similar capability into Composer in the near future, or simply makes Casper Suite able to use those kinds of disk images as is without needing to rebuild them at all.

High level on how the app works:
Drag either an .app bundle or a disk image onto the application and it will locate a valid application bundle (.app) and build a new .pkg package installer from it and set the application's install destination to /Applications/
You can also just double click the app to launch it and it will prompt you to select a .dmg or .app to package up.
It doesn't do much more than that, so as I said, its very simple in nature. But generally speaking the advice of separating the app from the settings is good advice. Not usually good to roll it all together in one package every time in my opinion.

alexjdale
Valued Contributor III

I'm a huge fan of Iceberg, I can't recommend it enough. Maybe some more hoops to jump through for simple packages, but it's great for more complicated projects (I do a lot of postflight scripts).

rtrouton
Release Candidate Programs Tester

If you don't want to take the plunge yet with AutoPkg, there's another way to easily package drag-and-drop applications using the Packages application. I have a post on how to do this available from here:

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/building-simple-packages-with-packages/