The macOS installer is fast and straightforward to make use of, however you’ll find out extra information on what occurs throughout installations by checking its built-in logs. Here is how to take a look at them.
macOS installer information are referred to as Packages and normally have a file extension of .pkg. While you open a .pkg to put in software program in your Mac, Apple’s installer app performs a posh collection of steps to confirm and set up the software program.
Most .pkg information are constructed to include a collection of normal steps during which the package deal is first verified, then payloads are decompressed and copied to the goal drive.
Lastly, post-install scripts are run to test the set up, set file permissions, and do any post-install cleanup.
From the GUI, this all appears like a easy and fast course of. However, behind the scenes, so much is happening.
Fortunately, the installer retains an in depth document of what occurs throughout set up. It is easy to view this log, reserve it to a textual content file or print it.
Installer is a generic app which runs .pkg information
Most .pkg information do not really include an installer app – as a substitute they get learn and run by macOS’s installer app (Installer.app) which lives in your Startup Disk at /System/Library/Core Providers. The present macOS Sequoia 15.3 installer app model is 6.2.
While you double-click a .pkg file within the Finder, macOS launches the installer app after which passes the file path of the .pkg to it so it may be learn.
To get a listing of all .pkg information in your Mac, press Command-F in your keyboard, then set the search phrases to “Variety is Different”, then enter “Installer” within the search area to the suitable.
.pkg information are Bundles, particular folders in macOS – similar to most apps are. It is also potential for .pkg bundles to include different packages.
That is additionally true of customized installers constructed by builders, which do not get run by Installer.app.
4 packages bundled inside Apple’s Xcode app.
Beginning in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple offered builders the flexibility to create flat installer package deal information. They’re single encoded information fairly than bundle folders, however which nonetheless have the .pkg filename extensions and get run by Installer.app.
Flat file packages stop customers from opening the .pkg bundles and searching inside with the Finder’s Present Bundle Contents contextual menu merchandise, or with the Terminal app.
Both method, when opened, Installer.app runs the .pkg and executes what it finds inside.
If a .pkg is not a flat file package deal, you may Management-click on it within the Finder after which choose the Present Bundle Contents merchandise from the contextual menu to open the .pkg bundle and see what’s inside it.
Do not change something inside a .pkg as a result of many .pkgs include digital singing data, which has to match the .pkg’s contents.
Viewing installer logs after set up
A typical .pkg set up will open a single commonplace Installer.app window displaying set up progress, together with steps and messages throughout set up. When set up completes or fails, Installer will show the outcomes and a message resembling “The Set up was profitable”.
At this level, the consumer would usually click on the Shut button within the installer window.
Installer.app with a accomplished set up.
If as a substitute of clicking the Shut button, the consumer selects the Window menu, a menu merchandise titled Installer Log (Command-L) is obtainable. Deciding on Installer Log prompts Installer.app to open a log window that shows full textual content of what occurred throughout set up.
The default show within the log is to indicate Present Errors Solely. However should you click on the Present Errors Solely menu merchandise within the toolbar on the high of the window, you too can choose both Present Errors and Progress, or Present All Logs.
Choose “Present All Logs” to see eveything that occurred throughout set up.
Deciding on Present All Logs modifications the log window’s textual content to show the complete, detailed steps the installer ran throughout set up – and any errors. There’s additionally a Search area on the high of the log window to go looking the log textual content, and a Save and Print button.
Save is especially helpful should you’re doing a number of installs from totally different .pkg information and wish to maintain data of all of the installations.
As soon as you have saved or printed every log, you may safely Give up the installer.
The installer log reveals a lot of helpful data together with:
- Time and date of set up
- Mac {hardware} and software program configuration
- Person identify
- Set up goal path
- Set up parts
- Errors or warnings
- Extra
Installer receipts
After every set up, macOS appends a brief document to a file named “InstallHistory.plist” situated in your Startup Disk at /Library/Receipts. It is a commonplace XML file in Property Listing (.plist) format which you’ll learn with any textual content editor, or with Apple’s Xcode developer app.
Every merchandise within the InstallHistory.plist file is an XML dictionary containing a small quantity of information concerning the set up carried out – one sub-item of which is known as “packageIdentifiers”. This array comprises a listing of all of the bundle IDs of the installer(s) which have been run.
Consider a .plist dictionary as a nested set of XML information with a reputation (key), and a gaggle of knowledge gadgets (resembling strings, arrays, dates, numbers, or different dictionaries).
A bundle ID is just textual content that uniquely identifies an app or .pkg to macOS. For instance “com.apple.installer” is the bundle ID of the macOS installer app itself. Every bundle ID should be distinctive with the intention to keep away from app and .pkg conflicts.
set up.log
If you wish to view the system-wide log file (set up.log) on macOS, it lives in your Startup Disk at /non-public/var/log. Beware although: until you have only in the near past accomplished a clear set up of macOS the file may be big – as in 1000’s and even tens of 1000’s of pages.
You will have to indicate invisible information within the Finder with the intention to view /non-public/var/log. You possibly can view any macOS .log file utilizing any plain textual content editor together with TextEdit offered by Apple.
Most macOS log information reside on this folder or in /Library/Logs within the consumer folder.
It’s also possible to view the set up.log file by operating macOS’s Console app within the /Purposes/Utilities folder in your Startup Disk. Console reveals you all system logs in a single centralized place.
To view set up.log in Console, merely choose Log Experiences within the sidebar, then double-click set up.log within the file pane on the suitable. There are additionally choices for clearing logs, and revealing the place they reside in your Startup Disk.
pkgutil
macOS additionally features a command-line Terminal app referred to as pkgutil, which is a normal function .pkg utility. To see choices and directions to be used, in Terminal kind:
man pkgutil and press Return in your keyboard. To exit the guide system, press Management-Z or q. It’s also possible to kind pkgutil -h in Terminal to get a listing of pkgutil instructions.
pkgutil has some cool choices which allow you to view information about .pkgs in your Mac. A number of of the extra attention-grabbing choices are:
- — pkgs (show all put in package deal IDs on a given quantity)
- — information (show information put in by the required package deal)
- — pkg-info (show metadata a couple of package deal)
- — overlook (discard receipt information for the required package deal)
- — develop (develop a flat .pkg to a folder)
- — flatten (reverse of develop)
- — check-signature (confirm signature of a package deal)
Most .pkgs additionally include a bom (Invoice of Supplies) file – and one other command-line software (lsbom) lets you learn the bom to listing what’s in a .pkg.
Deleting logs
You possibly can, infrequently, delete sure logs contained in /non-public/var/logs if you want. Simply do not delete something that’s locked or in use by macOS.
Periodically, macOS will archive previous logs by compressing and eradicating them. These log information will seem as .gz or .bz2 information.
Should you do not want these archived logs, you may delete them.
It’s also possible to take away logs from throughout the Console app itself. In each the Finder and in Console, you will have an admin password to take away protected logs.
Take into account that, once you delete log information out of your Mac, these messages are gone eternally and can now not be out there.
Within the occasion you do delete a system log that’s utilized by macOS, it is going to robotically re-create a brand new copy when it wants to jot down log messages out to disk. It is best to restart your Mac after deleting logs to reset and refresh the whole lot.
Should you do must maintain among the log information round for later however wish to clear them out of your Mac, make sure to make backup copies of the log information first.
Installer utilities
If you wish to construct your individual .pkg installers, macOS has a built-in command line software referred to as pkgbuild. The third-party utility Bundle Builder ($25) from Araelium helps ease package deal meeting and builds.
Stephane Sudre has a free package deal builder referred to as merely Packages.
Additionally try the cool .pkg inspector software Pacifist from CharlesSoft ($20).
Yet one more nice little installer utility is Suspicious Bundle from Mom’s Spoil. This utility permits you to peek inside macOS installers with out operating them – permitting you to confirm package deal signatures, see what an installer comprises, and see what scripts an installer will run.
The macOS installer structure could be very sturdy and in reality goes all the best way again to the very first launch of Mac OS X in 2000. Really, the .pkg structure goes all the best way again to macOS’s precursor, NeXTStep.
In a future article, we’ll have a look at frequent macOS installer errors and talk about how macOS installer packages are constructed and what to incorporate in them.
