Tuesday 20 September 2011

Making a pkg file to distribute through ARD Task Server


After making my little "Fix Everything Please" Automator Application I wanted to distribute it to all the machines, and the easiest way of doing this is using the much unused Task Server I have set up through Apple Remote Desktop. I have done this process before, but not documented it very well. What's worse is that I cannot find the newest "PackageMaker" application since re-imaging my machine, only the one which comes with Remote Desktop, which was originally for OS X 10.4! Apparently you can download it with the newest iPhone SDK which comes with XCode.

So, after some looking I found a well reviewed Package Maker app called Iceburg. Downloaded it, installed it and rebooted. Apparently it's a lot simpler then PackageMaker and I'd made the package in about 3 minutes. This is how I did it:

  1. Make a "New Project"
  2. Fill in the "Settings" section:
  3. Settings section of Iceburg Package Maker
    1. I put Admin Authorisation so there would be some control
  4. Fill in the Files section at the bottom:
    1. I clicked on Applications and pressed the "Set" button to set this as the Directory it was going
    2. Files section of Iceburg Package Maker
    3. I right clicked on the Applications folder and chose "Add Files..." and chose "Fix Everything Please.app" (I made sure the permissions were right in Finder before I did this)
  5. Clicked "Build and Run" in the top menus
Worked a charm. I had a little trouble getting the permissions right. At first it would make it "Read Write" for "Everyone". I changed the permissions and then re-added it to Iceburg and it seemed to work.

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