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Automating Installation of Many Packages

Introduction

Pkgadd isn't particularly user-friendly; it has plenty of options but they're a bit too hidden for my taste. For work, I needed to deploy approximately 1000 packages on several machines. However, with each package installation, I had to enter 'y' and press enter, which quickly becomes tedious.

To solve this problem, I looked at the man page and found the -n argument, which is useful since it lets you bypass interactive mode. The drawback is that it doesn't work perfectly. So I searched a bit on the internet and found the response file. This is a file where we pass options. These options are tested during a package installation, and here we force them by default to avoid being bothered.

Note: there's also the pkgask command that allows you to create a response file, but it seems to have some limitations compared to this method.

IMPORTANT: This doesn't work for .pkg files! Convert them beforehand.

Configuration

Response File

A response file can be generated using the pkgask command:

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pkgask -r /answer -d . <package>

This will generate a response file called "answer". This file contains options specific to the package and cannot be used by any other package.

When trying to generate a response file, the command might return this:

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pkgask: ERROR: package does not contain an interactive request script

Processing of request script failed.
No changes were made to the system.

This indicates that the package doesn't contain any customization information, and in this case, using an admin file is necessary.

Admin File

Not all packages allow the use of a response file, which is why we can also use an admin file. The admin file works the same way as the response file but uses standard options for a package installation rather than custom options specific to the package.

A template admin file can be found in the directory /var/sadm/install/admin/default. Copy it, then modify it to meet your needs.

Here's what an admin file looks like:

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# /answer
mail=
instance=overwrite
partial=nocheck
runlevel=nocheck
idepend=nocheck
rdepend=nocheck
space=nocheck
setuid=nocheck
conflict=nocheck
action=nocheck
networktimeout=60
networkretries=3
authentication=quit
keystore=/var/sadm/security
proxy=
basedir=default

WARNING: If you want to use this method to install packages in the "Finish" script of a jumpstart, don't forget to modify the parameter "basedir=default" to "basedir=/a/" which corresponds to the mount point of the partition during installation.

Installation Script

You can simply navigate to the folder in question and execute pkgadd:

  • With a response file
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pkgadd -n -r /answer -d . *
  • With an admin file
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pkgadd -n -a /answer -d . *

You must specify the full paths when using the response file!

Alternatively, you can use this script (I prefer it, but it's up to you):

  • With a response file
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for i in *; do
   test -d /export/home/packages_migration/$i && pkgadd -n -r /answer -d . $i
done
  • With an admin file
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for i in *; do
   test -d /export/home/packages_migration/$i && pkgadd -n -a /answer -d . $i
done

Run this and you'll be set!

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