packaging a java application for mac osx

Packaging A Java Application How To Use Any

They can often miss critical files or modifications to the file system.

But Im posting it here as the fundamentals have not really changed much.

There are many ways to achieve this, however the most effective and best practice method is to use Packages.

While packaging is quite simple, it can very quickly become quite complex.

This document serves to provide some guidelines to help you avoid some simple mistakes and prevent confusion when creating packages.

Packaging A Java Application How To Use Any

This guide will not go into detail about how to use any of these tools, it is up to the system admins own personal preference on which tools they wish to use in order to create their packages.

However version control is very important, as is the ability to quickly and accurately create and recreate packages.

The ability for packages to be peer reviewed and package versions to easily be diffd is also important and the admins choice of tools should take this into account.

It is also highly recommend that a version control system such as git is used in combination with package creation.

Below is a list of tools that are recommended for creating packages.

It is still quite powerful and allows a great deal of control over how your packages are created.

A build file is created which saves information on how the package should be created such as the payload, prepost flight scripts, additional resources etc etc.

Files can easily be reviewed to see what will be in the package without any extra work.

More often than not packages will be deployed to machines via management systems such as Munki or Casper.

Because of this you should ensure that your package can be installed to machines that are unattended (at the login window without a console user logged in).

Your package might not necessarily be installed to the currently booted volume, so ensure that any scripts in your package use the correct variables passed to it from the installer application.

For example, reference the target volume in your scripts by using the variable 3 (in bash) rather than using absolute file references.

These tools will only report the OS of the currently booted volume.

Similarly do not do things like opening a browser window to the installed softwares homepage.

If you wish to add Dock items, use another packagescriptprofiletool to achieve that.

If you have separate payloads for separate architecturesOS versions, perform your architectureOS check on the target volume, not the currently booted operating system see rule 2.

Wherever possible licensing files should be packaged separately to the application being deployed.

This allows for a single application package to be deployed to multiple sites with different licensing files applied later depending upon the licence that is appropriate for that site.

Instead correctly set the permissions of the files in the payload.

Packaging A Java Application For Mac Osx