Changing the location of the tmp files when building InstaDMG images

[typofonic]

Hi,

I was wondering if it is possible to change the location of the temporary files that instaDMG creates when building images? If yes, how?

I’m asking since my machine is partioned with two partitions – “os x” for the system and “work” for…yes you guessed it the work 😉 The problem is my “os x” partition doesn’t have enough room left (7GB) for the building proces, so I would like to use my “work” partition for the temporary files (50 GB left at the moment).

I would appreciate any help a code Jedi might be able to give me and other people with the same problem.

All the best

Anders, Denmark

[larkost]

Being able to change the temp directory is a good idea. So I just checked in code to do so. It now uses the -t flag to specify such a directory. The revised version is available as rev 119 in the svn repository.

[typofonic]

Thanks larkost – that was fast!

I got the latest svn version and tried using the flag (and deleting my original cached baseInstall Leopard image before I ran it) but unfortunately it still created gigabytes of files in /tmp on my startup partition (including a .dmg of 3.22 gb). It seems only some of the files were moved….
Any ideas?

[larkost]

Ok.. that was my mistake. I forgot that some things get set before we process the command line flags. I think I have now wrapped up everything that needs to be delayed, and have a new version with this correction in rev 139. Thanks for the bug report.

[typofonic]

Ok, I tried the new version but unfortunately this version came up with errors. I got the following output:

———
“typofonic-com:InstaDMG_1.4b3 anni1105$ sudo ./instadmg.bash -t /Volumes/work/
19:47:19 ######InstaDMG build initiated######
19:47:19 ######Mounting Mac OS X installer image######
Mounting the main OS Installer Disk from: ./InstallerFiles/BaseOS/Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg at: /Volumes/work//instaDMGMount.nOxitj
Mac OS X installer image mounted
19:47:23 ######Creating intermediary disk image######
Image mounted at /dev/disk2
Running on Intel Platform: Setting format to GPT
Intimediary image creation complete
19:47:49 ######Beginning Installation from /Volumes/work//instaDMGMount.nOxitj######
I’m running on Leopard or later. Checking for InstallerChoices.xml file
InstallerChoices.xml file found. Applying Choices
2008-09-06 19:47:54.369 installer[40979:3f13] *** Assertion failure in -[IFInstallPlan setValue:forAttribute:], /SourceCache/Install/Install-384/source/engine/helpers/IFInstallPlan.m:302
Installing BaseSystem…..
Base OS installed
Compacting and saving cached image to: ./Caches/BaseImageCache/2F403AAB:99fedc6f572285e5c3f889163e46e281f2c590d4.dmg
Remounting the image with a shadow file (/Volumes/work//instaDMGTemp.wQNthu.sparseimage)
19:48:04 ######Beginning Update Installs from ./InstallerFiles/BaseUpdates######
Installing MacOSXUpdCombo10.5.4.pkg from ./InstallerFiles/BaseUpdates/1
2008-09-06 19:48:08.311 installer[41187:3e13] *** Assertion failure in -[IFInstallPlan setValue:forAttribute:], /SourceCache/Install/Install-384/source/engine/helpers/IFInstallPlan.m:302

———

Also I tried to save the cache files to my cache directory at “/Volumes/work/Inbox, Outbox & Archive/Archive/System/Scratch/InstaDMG” and got the following output:

———

typofonic-com:InstaDMG_1.4b3 anni1105$ sudo ./instadmg.bash -t /Volumes/work/Inbox,\ Outbox\ \&\ Archive/Archive/System/Scratch/InstaDMG
mktemp: mkstemp failed on Archive/Archive/System/Scratch/InstaDMG/instaDMGTemp.hS2RzM: No such file or directory
mktemp: mkdtemp failed on /Volumes/work/Inbox,: File exists
mktemp: mkdtemp failed on Outbox: File exists
mktemp: mkdtemp failed on &: File exists
mktemp: mkdtemp failed on Archive/Archive/System/Scratch/InstaDMG/instaDMGMount.kJ2oUJ: No such file or directory
19:50:47 ######InstaDMG build initiated######
19:50:47 ######Mounting Mac OS X installer image######
mktemp: mkstemp failed on /Volumes/work/Inbox,: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on Outbox: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on &: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on Archive/Archive/System/Scratch/InstaDMG/instaDMGTemp.kay54B: No such file or directory
mktemp: mkstemp failed on /Volumes/work/Inbox,: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on Outbox: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on &: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on Archive/Archive/System/Scratch/InstaDMG/instaDMGTemp.qMvH4S: No such file or directory
mktemp: mkstemp failed on /Volumes/work/Inbox,: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on Outbox: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on &: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on Archive/Archive/System/Scratch/InstaDMG/instaDMGTemp.aqYpyK: No such file or directory
mktemp: mkstemp failed on /Volumes/work/Inbox,: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on Outbox: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on &: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on Archive/Archive/System/Scratch/InstaDMG/instaDMGTemp.bhF4w1: No such file or directory
mktemp: mkstemp failed on /Volumes/work/Inbox,: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on Outbox: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on &: File exists
mktemp: mkstemp failed on Archive/Archive/System/Scratch/InstaDMG/instaDMGTemp.hCBqRO: No such file or directory
./instadmg.bash: line 408: : No such file or directory
./instadmg.bash: line 415: : No such file or directory
Mounting the shadow file (/Volumes/work/Inbox, Outbox & Archive/Archive/System/Scratch/InstaDMG/E25A38E3-16DE-4E9D-B102-721195C4BE45.dmg) onto the image.
hdiutil: attach: cannot convert “” to URL
./instadmg.bash: line 424: : No such file or directory
rm: : No such file or directory
rm: : No such file or directory
rm: : No such file or directory
rm: : No such file or directory
rm: : No such file or directory
ERROR: the main install disk was not sucessfully mounted!
———

So it seems that it doesn’t deal well with pathnames with space and special characters like “&”.

[larkost]

I suspect that the assertion errors you are seeing might be because you are using a non-HFS+ (Journaled, case-preserving-but-insensitive) volume. Please be aware that none of the developers use anything but plain-jane HFS+ volumes at this point, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon [1].

I have made some changed to the code, and just checked them in to do two things:

1) Sanitize all of the paths that come in to make sure that they don’t end in “/”

2) Make sure that the temp folder path is always enclosed to take care of spaces in names. I missed a couple of spots before.

[1] – I am looking forward to testing ZFS in the Snow Leopard timeframe, and in about a month I will be adding additional (non boot) drives to my main machine that will allow me more room to play with things like that.

[typofonic]

Hmm…I ran the newest svn version you made yesterday and it broke my main system. I got an “Unable to login because an error occured” with all my users on my main startup partition. It renamed my “work” partition to instaDMG and installed all the system files on it. Anyway it broke something major on my system – but I guess it’s about time I reinstalled anyway. But I’m back on track again now and I haven’t lost any stuff. I hope there aren’t too many “rm -rf” commands in the instaDMG script 😉

Don’t know what happened. Maybe something about the paths.

Also I’m not sure what you meant regarding the volume format. I’m using Jounaled Case Insensitive HFS+ volumes – the default HFS+ Journaled format of OS X. I assume this should work?

But it still doesn’t work. Any ideas?

[typofonic]

Any updates on this? 🙂

[larkost]

And for the record… I can’t reproduce it (and can’t fix what I can’t reproduce).

[typofonic]

19:47:19 ######InstaDMG build initiated######
19:47:19 ######Mounting Mac OS X installer image######
Mounting the main OS Installer Disk from: ./InstallerFiles/BaseOS/Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg at: /Volumes/work//instaDMGMount.nOxitj
Mac OS X installer image mounted
19:47:23 ######Creating intermediary disk image######
created: /Volumes/work//instaDMGTemp.wQNthu.sparseimage
Image mounted at /dev/disk2
Running on Intel Platform: Setting format to GPT
Started erase on disk disk2
Creating partition map
Formatting disk2s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name 125516B8-FB9E-4960-983E-F31D1FB41426

Finished erase on disk disk2
Finished partitioning on disk disk2
/dev/disk2 GUID_partition_scheme
/dev/disk2s1 EFI
/dev/disk2s2 Apple_HFS /Volumes/work//instaDMGMount.kpW1p3
Intimediary image creation complete
19:47:49 ######Beginning Installation from /Volumes/work//instaDMGMount.nOxitj######
I’m running on Leopard or later. Checking for InstallerChoices.xml file
InstallerChoices.xml file found. Applying Choices
installer: Package name is Mac OS X
installer: choices changes file ‘./InstallerFiles/BaseOS/InstallerChoices.xml’ applied
installer: Installing at base path /Volumes/work//instaDMGMount.kpW1p3
installer: Preparing for installation…..
installer: Preparing the Disk…..
installer: Preparing Target Volume
#
installer: Preparing Mac OS X…..
installer: Running Installer actions
installer:
installer: Installing BaseSystem…..
installer:
installer: Configuring Installation
installer: The install failed (The Installer encountered an unknown error that failed the install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.)
Base OS installed
Compacting and saving cached image to: ./Caches/BaseImageCache/2F403AAB:99fedc6f572285e5c3f889163e46e281f2c590d4.dmg
“disk2” unmounted.
“disk2” ejected.
Remounting the image with a shadow file (/Volumes/work//instaDMGTemp.wQNthu.sparseimage)
/dev/disk2 GUID_partition_scheme
/dev/disk2s1 EFI
/dev/disk2s2 Apple_HFS /Volumes/work//instaDMGMount.kpW1p3
19:48:04 ######Beginning Update Installs from ./InstallerFiles/BaseUpdates######
Installing MacOSXUpdCombo10.5.4.pkg from ./InstallerFiles/BaseUpdates/1
installer: Package name is Mac OS X Update Combined
installer: Installing at base path /Volumes/work//instaDMGMount.kpW1p3
installer: Preparing for installation…..
installer: Preparing the Disk…..
installer: Preparing Target Volume
#
installer: Preparing Mac OS X Update Combined…..
installer: Running Installer actions
installer:
installer: Installing MacOSXUpdCombo10.5.4…..
installer:
installer: Configuring Installation
installer: The install failed (The Installer encountered an unknown error that failed the install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.)
—-CUT THE REST OF THE PACKAGES—-
19:50:04 ######Correcting some generic installer errors######
Correcting symlinks that point off the disk
Closing programs that have opened files on the disk

Does this give any hints?

[Author]

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