PSA: Problems packaging VMware Fusion 11.5.5

[sdagley]

VMware Fusion 11.5.5 now has 21 files in the application bundle with attached xattrs which are not preserved if you use Composer to create a .pkg installer, or when running the AutoPkg recipe for packaging VMware Fusion 11. Attempting to run a VM without those xattrs present will fail with a broken pipe error.

To work around this for Composer you can compress the VMware Fusion.app bundle, the create an installer .pkg to drop the .zip file in a temporary location and use ditto to extract the app into /Applications which will preserve the xattrs. The fix for the AutoPkg recipe will require a change to one of the AutoPkg components.

[franton]

I was dealing with something similar last week. It seems the solution is blogged here: https://carlashley.com/2018/11/03/preserving-xattr-with-pkgbuild/

If you want to use composer, rather than CLI tools then you'll have to do an FR request for this as an option with Composer. I'll happily upvote.

[sdagley]

@franton Thanks for the reference, I added it to the conversation in #autopkg on Mac Admis Slack. I'll get that FR created sometime this evening

[sdagley]

FR created: Composer needs to support xattrs

[rtrouton]

You can also use munkipkg to package VMware Fusion 11.5.5 successfully. What I did to make this work was the following:

1. Installed munkipkg
2. Ran the following command to import the previous VMware Fusion installer package: munkipkg --import /path/to/VMwareFusion1153.pkg VMwareFusion1155
3. Went into the VMwareFusion1155 project directory which munkipkg had set up and replaced the VMware Fusion.app found at VMwareFusion1155/payload/Applications with the VMware Fusion.app for VMware Fusion 11.5.5.
4. Edited the build_info.plist found in the VMwareFusion1155 project directory to look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>distribution_style</key>
    <false/>
    <key>identifier</key>
    <string>com.vmware.fusion</string>
    <key>install_location</key>
    <string>/</string>
    <key>name</key>
    <string>VMware_Fusion_11.5.5.pkg</string>
    <key>ownership</key>
    <string>recommended</string>
    <key>postinstall_action</key>
    <string>none</string>
    <key>preserve_xattr</key>
    <true/>
    <key>version</key>
    <string>11.5.5</string>
</dict>
</plist>

I then built the VMware Fusion 11.5.5 package with the following command:

munkipkg /path/to/VMwareFusion1155

munkipkg processed for a bit then delivered a package named VMware_Fusion_11.5.5.pkg, which installed a fully working copy of VMware Fusion 11.5.5.

[donmontalvo]

Whitebox Packages fixed the issue in the past few versions, it also includes a command line tool.

http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/Packages/about.html

[bmack99]

@rtrouton Thanks for posting this. I have been struggling with trying to get the 11.5.5 Fusion update packaged and deployed. Munkipkg worked great, I did have one question though, after install upon first launch (at least in macOS 10.15) there is an admin prompt for Fusion to configure a few things. Do you know a way to suppress this prompt for admin? We have users in our environment who do not have admin privileges. Thanks!

[sdagley]

FYI the AutoPkg recipe for creating a .pkg for VMware Fusion has been updated to work around this issue, and appears to be functional once again