Munki PKG is a simple tool very similar to The Luggage which builds packages in a consistent, repeatable manner from source files and scripts in a project directory.įiles, scripts and metadata are stored in a way that is easy to track and manage using a version control system like git. The big benefit to using The Luggage is that because the packages are created with make files, these make files can easily be diff’d to see changes as well as talking other users through the creation process. Files can easily be reviewed to see what will be in the package without any extra work. A build file is created which saves information on how the package should be created such as the payload, pre/post flight scripts, additional resources etc etc.Ī completely text driven package building system perfect for use with version control systems such as Git. It is still quite powerful and allows a great deal of control over how your packages are created. It is also highly recommend that a version control system such as git is used in combination with package creation.īelow is a list of tools that are recommended for creating packages:Ī great GUI driven tool to create flat and distribution packages and provides an easy to learn GUI. The ability for packages to be peer reviewed and package versions to easily be diff’d is also important and the admin’s choice of tools should take this into account. However version control is very important, as is the ability to quickly and accurately create and recreate packages. This guide will not go into detail about how to use any of these tools, it is up to the system admin’s own personal preference on which tools they wish to use in order to create their packages. There are many tools out there used to create Packages, Apple offer their own built in command line tools like pkgbuild. This document serves to provide some guidelines to help you avoid some simple mistakes and prevent confusion when creating packages. While packaging is quite simple, it can very quickly become quite complex.

There are many ways to achieve this, however the most effective and best practice method is to use Packages. When managing Mac OS X devices, you will enviably have to deploy files or applications to many devices. But I’m posting it here as the fundamentals have not really changed much.Ĭredits: Thanks to Gary Larizza for his post on where most of this documents content was sourced ( ) Overview

Note: This post may be a little out of date as it was originally written in 2015.

Mac os list installed packages