Silent installations via Chef in Windows

Chef Infra (archive)
1

I can’t find much information about this. Been struggling to get it working.

Anyone aware of a tutorial on how to do this right, or even, what
alternatives they are using to perform installations?

2

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 3:57 PM, Kenneth Barry kbarry-x@tunein.com wrote:

I can't find much information about this. Been struggling to get it working.

Anyone aware of a tutorial on how to do this right, or even, what
alternatives they are using to perform installations?

Are you talking about the silent installation of software in Windows?
What software are you trying to install?

For MSIs, msiexec /qn has generally worked for me (using either the
windows_package resource or the built-in 'package' resource in Chef
11.12.x) but results vary based on how terrible the software vendor
is... Oracle Client for example is one that refuses to install
unattended.

  • Julian

--
[ Julian C. Dunn jdunn@aquezada.com * Sorry, I'm ]
[ WWW: Julian Dunn's Blog - Commentary on media, technology, and everything in between. * only Web 1.0 ]
[ gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ * compliant! ]
[ PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9 ]

3

Julian,

As per the documentation windows_package Resource , the new windows_package (built-in) resource seems to lack some attributes, like "options", that we used to have before from windows cookbook. This attribute was used to pass in command-line arguments, such as "/qn" for silent installs for MSIs that allow it. Any idea on how to pass such arguments using this new built-in resource? I did not have much success with using "package" resource either, though I mentioned the windows provider in "provider" attribute. Also, is there a way to still use this resource from windows cookbook? (something like "include_recipe 'windows'" in recipe perhaps?)

Kenneth, due to above mentioned issue and some other requirement, I had to use following alternative, using powershell_resource. This will install the MSI silently and generate the verbose log for installation.

powershell_script "Install MSI Silently " do
code <<-EOH

$command = \"msiexec /qn /i \" + "#{installerFilePath}" + \" /L*vx #{msilogFilePath} 
Invoke-Expression -Command $command
	
EOH

end

Thanks

-Kapil

-----Original Message-----
From: Julian C. Dunn [mailto:jdunn@aquezada.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2014 2:42 AM
To: chef@lists.opscode.com
Subject: [chef] Re: Silent installations via Chef in Windows

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 3:57 PM, Kenneth Barry kbarry-x@tunein.com wrote:

I can't find much information about this. Been struggling to get it working.

Anyone aware of a tutorial on how to do this right, or even, what
alternatives they are using to perform installations?

Are you talking about the silent installation of software in Windows?
What software are you trying to install?

For MSIs, msiexec /qn has generally worked for me (using either the windows_package resource or the built-in 'package' resource in Chef
11.12.x) but results vary based on how terrible the software vendor is... Oracle Client for example is one that refuses to install unattended.

  • Julian

--
[ Julian C. Dunn jdunn@aquezada.com * Sorry, I'm ]
[ WWW: Julian Dunn's Blog - Commentary on media, technology, and everything in between. * only Web 1.0 ]
[ gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ * compliant! ]
[ PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9 ]

4

Thanks for the reply. Been banging my head over this one. I'll give it a shot today, and see we hat I come up with. Curios to see what the /L*vx means.

On Jun 18, 2014, at 6:40 AM, Kapil Shardha Kapil.Shardha@SimulationIQ.com wrote:

Julian,

As per the documentation windows_package Resource , the new windows_package (built-in) resource seems to lack some attributes, like "options", that we used to have before from windows cookbook. This attribute was used to pass in command-line arguments, such as "/qn" for silent installs for MSIs that allow it. Any idea on how to pass such arguments using this new built-in resource? I did not have much success with using "package" resource either, though I mentioned the windows provider in "provider" attribute. Also, is there a way to still use this resource from windows cookbook? (something like "include_recipe 'windows'" in recipe perhaps?)

Kenneth, due to above mentioned issue and some other requirement, I had to use following alternative, using powershell_resource. This will install the MSI silently and generate the verbose log for installation.

powershell_script "Install MSI Silently " do
code <<-EOH

$command = "msiexec /qn /i " + "#{installerFilePath}" + " /L*vx #{msilogFilePath}
Invoke-Expression -Command $command

EOH
end

Thanks

-Kapil

-----Original Message-----
From: Julian C. Dunn [mailto:jdunn@aquezada.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2014 2:42 AM
To: chef@lists.opscode.com
Subject: [chef] Re: Silent installations via Chef in Windows

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 3:57 PM, Kenneth Barry kbarry-x@tunein.com wrote:
I can't find much information about this. Been struggling to get it working.

Anyone aware of a tutorial on how to do this right, or even, what
alternatives they are using to perform installations?

Are you talking about the silent installation of software in Windows?
What software are you trying to install?

For MSIs, msiexec /qn has generally worked for me (using either the windows_package resource or the built-in 'package' resource in Chef
11.12.x) but results vary based on how terrible the software vendor is... Oracle Client for example is one that refuses to install unattended.

  • Julian

--
[ Julian C. Dunn jdunn@aquezada.com * Sorry, I'm ]
[ WWW: Julian Dunn's Blog - Commentary on media, technology, and everything in between. * only Web 1.0 ]
[ gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ * compliant! ]
[ PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9 ]

5

Kenneth,

For msi installers, "/L*vx" command-line switch indicates verbose logging.

-Kapil

-----Original Message-----
From: Kenneth Barry [mailto:kbarry-x@tunein.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2014 10:11 AM
To: chef@lists.opscode.com
Subject: [chef] Re: RE: Re: Silent installations via Chef in Windows

Thanks for the reply. Been banging my head over this one. I'll give it a shot today, and see we hat I come up with. Curios to see what the /L*vx means.

On Jun 18, 2014, at 6:40 AM, Kapil Shardha Kapil.Shardha@SimulationIQ.com wrote:

Julian,

As per the documentation
windows_package Resource , the new
windows_package (built-in) resource seems to lack some attributes,
like "options", that we used to have before from windows cookbook.
This attribute was used to pass in command-line arguments, such as
"/qn" for silent installs for MSIs that allow it. Any idea on how to
pass such arguments using this new built-in resource? I did not have
much success with using "package" resource either, though I mentioned
the windows provider in "provider" attribute. Also, is there a way to
still use this resource from windows cookbook? (something like
"include_recipe 'windows'" in recipe perhaps?)

Kenneth, due to above mentioned issue and some other requirement, I had to use following alternative, using powershell_resource. This will install the MSI silently and generate the verbose log for installation.

powershell_script "Install MSI Silently " do
code <<-EOH

$command = "msiexec /qn /i " + "#{installerFilePath}" + " /L*vx #{msilogFilePath}
Invoke-Expression -Command $command

EOH
end

Thanks

-Kapil

-----Original Message-----
From: Julian C. Dunn [mailto:jdunn@aquezada.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2014 2:42 AM
To: chef@lists.opscode.com
Subject: [chef] Re: Silent installations via Chef in Windows

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 3:57 PM, Kenneth Barry kbarry-x@tunein.com wrote:
I can't find much information about this. Been struggling to get it working.

Anyone aware of a tutorial on how to do this right, or even, what
alternatives they are using to perform installations?

Are you talking about the silent installation of software in Windows?
What software are you trying to install?

For MSIs, msiexec /qn has generally worked for me (using either the
windows_package resource or the built-in 'package' resource in Chef
11.12.x) but results vary based on how terrible the software vendor is... Oracle Client for example is one that refuses to install unattended.

  • Julian

--
[ Julian C. Dunn jdunn@aquezada.com * Sorry, I'm ]
[ WWW: Julian Dunn's Blog - Commentary on media, technology, and everything in between. * only Web 1.0 ]
[ gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ * compliant! ]
[ PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9 ]

6

On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 6:40 AM, Kapil Shardha
Kapil.Shardha@simulationiq.com wrote:

As per the documentation windows_package Resource , the new windows_package
(built-in) resource seems to lack some attributes, like "options", that we used to have before from windows cookbook.
This attribute was used to pass in command-line arguments, such as "/qn" for silent installs for MSIs that allow it. Any
idea on how to pass such arguments using this new built-in resource? I did not have much success with using "package"
resource either, though I mentioned the windows provider in "provider" attribute. Also, is there a way to still use this
resource from windows cookbook? (something like "include_recipe 'windows'" in recipe perhaps?)

There is still an 'options' parameter that you can set to whatever
extra flags you want msiexec to use. Looks like it is missing from the
documentation; I'll have that corrected.

And yes, you can still use the old windows_package provider from the
cookbook. Depending on it in metadata in your cookbook will override
the provider in core and allow you to install packages the old way,
plus supports Inno, Installshield, etc. that we haven't gotten around
to adding to core yet.

BTW, I have had lots of problems with msiexec generally (outside of
Chef) and UAC. If you try to install an MSI using msiexec from a
package that resides in a UAC-protected directory (example:
C:\Users\jdunn\Downloads), it will silently fail and even /l* doesn't
log anything. :frowning:

  • Julian

--
[ Julian C. Dunn jdunn@aquezada.com * Sorry, I'm ]
[ WWW: Julian Dunn's Blog - Commentary on media, technology, and everything in between. * only Web 1.0 ]
[ gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ * compliant! ]
[ PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9 ]