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Package Management With DMG

This is the extended documentation for the pkgdmg provider for the package type.

This provider always assumes the label (formerly called ‘name’) attribute declared in the manifest will always exactly match the file name (without path) of the DMG file itself. Therefore, if you want to install packages in ‘Foobar.pkg.dmg’ you must explicitly specify the label:

package { Foobar.pkg.dmg: ensure => installed, provider => pkgdmg }

Only the dmg file name itself is used when puppet determines if the packages contained within are currently installed. For example, if a package resource named ‘Foobar.pkg.dmg’ is named for installation and contains multiple packages, this provider will install all packages in the root directory of this file system, then create a small cookie for the whole bundle, located at /var/db/.puppet_pkgdmg_installed_Foobar.pkg.dmg

As a result, if you change the contents of the DMG file in any way, Puppet will not update or re-install the packages contained within unless you change the file name of the DMG wrapper itself. Therefore, if you use this provider, I recommend you name the DMG wrapper files in a manner that lends itself to incremental version changes. I include some version or date string in the DMG name, like so:

Firefox-2.0.0.3-1.pkg.dmg

If I realize I’ve mis-packaged this DMG, then I have the option to increment the package version, yielding Firefox-2.0.0.3-2.pkg.dmg.

This provider allows you to host DMG files within an FTP or HTTP server. This is primarily how the author provider distributes software. Any URL mechanism curl or Ruby’s open-uri module supports is supported by this provider. Curl supported URL’s yield much faster data throughput than open-uri, so I recommend HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP for source package repositories.

Because the provider assumes packages will be transfered via CURL, a two stage process occurs. First, if a URL is detected, curl is invoked to transfer the file into a temporary directory. If no URL is present, the provider skips straight to step 2. In step two, the source file is mounted, then packages installed, and finally the DMG file is removed.

If this is a problem for you, please patch the code, or bug Jeff to fix this.

Example usage:

package { Thunderbird-2.0.0.4-1.pkg.dmg:
  provider => pkgdmg, ensure => present
  source => 'http://0.0.0.0:8000/packages/Thunderbird-2.0.0.4-1.pkg.dmg',
}

WARNING: Because I assume files will be downloaded to /tmp, the current implementation attempts to delete DMG files if you install directly from the file system and not via a URL method.