Adding external jar to your CustomCodeAction

[Question]

In GUI mode, the installer launches and installs, and after the installation executes a PostInstall Action which runs a Script/Batch file. In this Script file we call another Java class which is interactive. (means it gets input and outputs messages on the same window or a separate window). The dependencies are added in the batch/script file using export Library Path

Now I want to emulate this in Console Mode. I want to call this class from Console Mode Custom Code execution action so that the input and output are done on the Console mode Installer. The class which is called in turn depends on a lot of 3rd party jars. As soon as I add dependencies for the 3rd party signed jars it always gives exception "no manifest section for signature file entry" .

Since the jars are 3rd party, I can't go back and modify the jar contents. Is there anyway to overcome this problem ?

[ANSWER]

If you are calling your java class from a script/batch file add the dependency of your 3rd party jar files in the script itself instead of adding dependency in the IA project. Since the java class file is called from a script which spawns a different process and into a new shell the dependencies added to the main project does not get resolved while loading the class file into the JRE when spawned through script/batch.

InstallAnywhere's feature of adding files into class path or adding dependencies only works correctly in case of custom code action.

To load the 3rd party jars when using with shell use the following java arguments in the shell script to execute it.

java -cp abc.jar;xerces.jar;ant.jar com.yourcompany.packagename.ClassName

Here -cp added to the Java command tells the JRE to load abc.jar, xerces.jar and ant.jar to be added in the class path for executing the com.yourcompany.packagename.ClassName class file.

Installing JBoss server and application using IA

[Question]

How can I modify the port number in JBoss server using InstallAnywhere. I install JBoss-3.2.7.zip with IA, I get a user input for the Port Number and I know that the port number has to be set in the file server.xml inside the JBoss-3.2.7.zip. Should I use the action 'Modify Text File in Archive' action to replace the port? I can use the variable  $PORT_NUMBER$ to replace the existing port number. But don't know how to use it in the action to search for the line

 

Connector port="8080" address="${jboss.bind.address}

[ANSWER]

If you are installing JBoss using InstallAnywhere  add action in your project modify files in Archive. In your case its a bundled archive so select installed archive then click configure, 

In the configure frame update  search for  "${jboss.bind.address}" and fill the replace with "<your desired port number>"

Once this activity is done add the extract archive action to actually install your JBoss server zip.

An alternative approach to this problem would be to deflate the archive and then add an action to modify ASCII file with the above data.

       If you want to deploy your application using InstallAynwhere go to the Organization -> Hosts tab of Advanced designer click on add host. Choose application server from the choice (there will be two hosts listed over there DataBase Host and Application Server host)

Once Application server host is added to the project in Host section, fill up the necessary details like in your case choose JBoss 4.0.5 or newer and then select "Server Path".

Once done go to the Install Section of the Advanced designer and add an Action to deploy war file.

HTML Display in InstallAnywhere swing Panel.

As a Install Anywhere user you might have been asked to display HTML files in IA Swing panels quite a lot of time, as a installer developer its quite tedious for the engineer to code and format html files.

Recently I had a change to do the same thing here I followed a trick, created a nice word document with all the formatting (text, paragraph and alignment) then saved the file in filtered html format. The result was a nice looking html page with all the formatting present when viewed in IE.

 

Without worrying any thing I added the file into HTML display panel and few of the surprises came in front of me

 

1. The preview panel button showed my HTML document inside the SWING but all the formatting was lost.

2. When the project was build the HTML display panel showed the HTML inside the frame with lots of white spaces, although the formatting was there but some of the special characters were visible in it.

 

The above experience left me scratching my head as what might have gone wrong, if I am opening the same .htm in IE or other browser things look quite good then why do I see weired results in case of Installer panel???

 

After close inspection and ofcource some hit and tries answered me,  and here's what I found

 

1. If your html document uses tags like col span, table to format the content and wrap it after say 55 characters from left

2. If you use <p> paragraph in your html file to format the look and feel of your html document

3. If you use xhtml where a schema is present to validate the DOM elements in your html

 

You might get experience the same kind of UI issue, to resolve the issue use all the tags for do not intend to use col span, table, paragraph that restrict the rendering of html file from left to right.

 

The root course

 

Install Anywhere uses text wrap to format the rend erring of html in its swing panel, so when a pre formatted document is encountered by IA it tries to reformat it thereby resulting into lot of white space and sometimes a left to right scroll bar also appears thereby taking away the nice look of your html and also poses difficulty to the user to read the mesage.

 

Use the above mentioned ways to get rid of cosmetic but yet irritating bugs like this...

Some more InDepth to segmentation fault on UNICES..

 

A segmentation fault occurs when a program attempts to access a memory location that it is not allowed to access, or attempts to access a memory location in a way that is not allowed (for example, attempting to write to a read-only location, or to overwrite part of the operating system).

 

Usually signal #11 (SIGSEGV) set, which is defined in the header file signal.h file. The default action for a program upon receiving SIGSEGV is abnormal termination. This action will end the process, but may generate a core file (also known as core dump) to aid debugging, or perform some other platform-dependent action. A core dump is the recorded state of the working memory of a computer program at a specific time, generally when the program has terminated abnormally.

 

Segmentation fault can also occur under following circumstances:

 

a) A buggy program / command, which can be only fixed by applying patch.

 

b) It can also appear when you try to access an array beyond the end of an array under C programming.

 

c) Inside a chrooted jail this can occur when critical shared libs, config file or /dev/ entry missing.

 

d) Sometime hardware or faulty memory or driver can also create problem.

 

e) Maintain suggested environment for all computer equipment (overheating can also generate this problem).

 

Suggestions to debug Segmentation Fault errors

 

To debug this kind of error try one or all of the following techniques :

 

• Use gdb to track exact source of problem.
• Make sure correct hardware installed and configured.
• Always apply all patches and use updated system.
• Make sure all dependencies installed inside jail.
• Turn on core dumping for supported services such as Apache.
• Use strace which is a useful diagnostic, instructional, and debugging tool.
• Google and find out if there is a solution to problem.
• Fix your C program for logical errors such as pointer, null pointer, arrays and so on.
• Analyze core dump file generated by your system using gdb

 

Re: Segmentation Fault

Segmentation fault on a UNIX machine occurs when there are paging or swap violation. Installers some times use OS services which try to buffer quite a lot of things sometimes thereby causing a buffer overflow resulting into the segmentation fault. This issue can reproduced when handling a lot of date parallel over the machine having limited amount of resources.

 

Segmentation fault is something more related to OS and can be analyzed with the help of core dumps generated.

 

Relating the issue with the installer, the issue can only be debugged with the help core dumps which would probably answer questions like which Op Code tried to violate the OS boundaries and create race conditions.

On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 7:45 PM, tony prabhu <ruban142003@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi,   Generally why does segmentation fault appears in Linux machine when an installer with a huge payload is run. But this does not happen while running a simple project in the same machine with all the java compatibility. I believe this fault will appear when the rules of the Linux machine are violated for exampe: trying to access a resource in the machine which is not available. So, does the large installer tries the scenario like what i have mentioned above? Please explain to me.   Thanks for your time. Tony

--
FreshersDirect Team
http://www.freshersdirect.com

Re: InstallAnywhere details

You are absolutely correct, Execute Script returns the exit code for the action not of the underlying batch/script file. My experience with says that IA execute script does not work correctly in case of DOS batch files.
The reason being, execute run script uses Java Process.getRuntime.exec() thread to run the batch or command passed. Here Process.waitfor() method is used, if the underlying script uses @echo ON inside the script the behavior is very abrupt. Only the first script's 1 to 6th or 7th steps are run after that the script keeps on waiting thereby making the installation hang.

I would suggest to use your own plugin for executing command or batch specifically when the command or script calls another shell to execute the sequence of steps.

In the plugin spawn a thead and dont wait for the thread to complete. here the disadvantage is you will not get the complete the stderr, stdout till the theread completes but its a nice tradeoff done where you want to set gurentee for the underlying command to complete sucessfully.

I have developed a plugin which you can use if you want.

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 6:46 PM, tony prabhu <ruban142003@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi,   I am a beginner with IA and I want to know about the Execute Script/Batch action and how it works. I believe the exit code in this action is only for the action and not for the script or the commands it executes. So, how can i get an exit code for the executed script? Please explain to me in a detailed manner.   Thanks Tony

Re: Help

You are messing up two different things, earlier you said you want the user to input the architecture of the machine, now your requirement is going on the dev side.

Wait I will explain in detail

If your requirement is just to find the end users machine architecture

either run a custom java code or run a execute command utility in IA found under Add Action --> General Tab,

The command to run in uname -m, it will return u i386 which is 32 bit,

To find out more about various OS check out this link for determining the OS architecture, http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/win/64bit.html

Regarding running this write a Java class which would determine the OS version and subsiquently the OS architecture. Store the result in a IA variable

Code snippet

<>

class MyCustomCode(InstallerProxy ip) extends IACustomCode
{
   /* Run the logic to store the OS tye in a variable say MyOS */

   ip.substitute("OS_TYP", MyOS) // here the value of MyOS determined earlier is stored in a IA valiable $OS_TYP$
}

Inside the Install action under ur IDE you can add a compare installanywhere action to install any specific file or folder

e.g $OS_TYP$ equals 64bit then install else move ahead.

I do not have an IDE infront of me right now otherwise I would have sent you some screen shots.

If you are still face the issue I will create a sample project for you...for this logic

****************************************************************************************************

********************************************************************************************************

 

I am trying to download the enterprise version.

But there is still one doubt which is - the panel "get user input" is for the end user not for the developer (who is using InstallAnywhere for making installer e.g. me).

Can u throw some light on it please???

Actually I want InstallAnywehre to prompt me (developer) for taking the input as 32 bit or 64 bit at the time of building the project as shown below as per the requirement of the end user.

 

 

 

 

An issue with 32 bit and 64 machine

Problem :

 

Installerwhich build the application for multiple platforms (targeting Linux, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris and Windows).

My application has  binaries for above 5 platforms each of 32bit and 64bit (so kind of 10 platforms).

 

I have a directory structure like below

 

Application

|

|-----Linux

|              |-Linux32

|              |-Linux64

|

|-----AIX

|              |-AIX32

|              |-AIX64

|

|-----HP-UX

|              |-HP-UX32

|              |-HP-UX64

|

|-----Solaris

|              |-Solaris32

|              |-Solaris64

|

|-----Windows

|              |-Windows32

|              |-Windows64

|

 

Now what required is when I build as shown below my application and check the Linux box it should prompt  me to take input as "Linux32" or "Linux64" (user input) so that the  Linux installer of 32bit or 64bit is built.

 

 

 

 Solution :

Its quite easy to do that, installanywhere  has an inbuild functionality to check the OS architecture. You can store the OS architecture in the IA variable and implement your logic once you are known to end users OS architecture.

You will find this feature in Organization settings.

InstallAnywhere buildoutputs are independent to platform architecture, you can build your application for any desired platform with or without VM and run it. At the run time have a user input panel or at rutime decide the architecture of the user machine and cotinue with your installation logic.

Like this


Application ----
                      Folder 1 <Only if 32 bit>
                      Folder 2 <Only if 64 bit>

In the install section you can put a rule of compare installAnywhere variable so that it gets installed only when the rule is met.
 

Uninstaller Errors

Recently after changing the product name of one of the Merge modules in my suite I started getting errors while uninstallation.

When the uninstaller was called it threw a java exception saying target invocation exception stating



ZeroGu5: c:\program files\OpenSource\InstallFrameWork\Uninstaller\resource\iawin32.dll not found

at ZeroGa2.b(DashoA10*..)

at ZeroGa2.b(DashoA10*..)

at com.zerog.ia.installer.LifeCycleManager.b(DashoA10*..)

at com.zerog.ia.installer.LifeCycleManager.a(DashoA10*..)

at com.zerog.ia.installer.Main.main(DashoA10*..)

at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)

at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)

at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)

at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)

at com.zerog.lax.LAX.launch(DashoA10*..)

at com.zerog.lax.LAX.main(DashoA10*..)

Upon inspection I found that the resource folder that contains platform specific dll's under the uninstall folder. Even the global registry file that contains the file/folder installation was also found to be missing, so practically the uninstaller cannot work without this file.

Scratching my head for hours I build the installer with high debug enabled (jvm parameters -Dlax.debug.level=3 -Dlax.debug.all=true) with stderr and stdout directed to a file, but could not trace out any specific problem.

The installer archive contained all the resources that are required inside the uninstall folder, so there was no question that its a build issue.

Then I started the the dry run of the program my normalizing the payload to zero, modifying the project information properties and found that the product name had a trailing space at the end

Once the trailing space was removed the installation and uninstallation started working properly.

Although a is a kind of cosmetic defect but took hell lot of time to dig it out. Probably the Install Anywhere team forgot to check the product name property for any trailing spaces that can disrupt their XML transformation logic.

Avinash Anand

An accomplished software engineer looking for a challenging opportunity with a globally respected organization that provides ample opportunities to showcase my expertise, enhance my knowledge and allows me to contribute as a positive factor in the progress of the company. Active contributor in open source world, currently working in Google appengine and Java based open source cross platform installer framework.


Professional Summary

* Over 42 months of Development experience in Java/J2EE (Core Java, JSP, Servlet, JDBC, XML).
* Responsible for System Analysis, Design, Coding, and Qualitative experience in managing project modules independently.
* Extensive exposure to: Waterfall and Agile Development approaches.
* Development processes like Analysis, Design, Coding, Testing and Maintenance.
* Client-Server Architecture and MVC Architecture.
* Object Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD).
* Worked with protocols such as SNMP, TCP/IP, UDP, SIP, H.323.
* Well exposed to both Client/Server and Web environment.
* Experience in doing unit testing using JUnit. Created test plan for unit testing.
* Used Rational Purify Plus for analyzing code coverage, code optimization and memory management.
* Interactive team player and proactive personality.
* Experience in installation, configuration and maintenance of Operating Systems, Web Servers, Database Systems and Mail Servers.


Product Software Components :

Operating Systems : Windows 2000/2003, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX
Databases : SQL Server 2000, Oracle, DB2
Web Server : Microsoft Internet Information Server, Sun ONE Web Server, IBM HTTP Server, Tomcat
Application Server : IBM WebSphere Application Server

Work Profile includes :

* Involved in creating multi Installer for the product using ISMP 5.0 and InstallAnywhere over various platforms such as Windows AIX and Solaris.
* Worked in installer migration from ISMP to InstallAnywhere 2009.
* Written blog over InstallAnywhere http://installanywhere.blogspot.com
* Involved in writing Java Beans for integration with Install Shield, custom code and plugin development for InstallAnywhere
* Worked with Accresso support team bug reporting and getting timely fixes.
Integration of various modules created under the project.
* Addressed various bugs filled against the installer.
* Documented all the defects to be addressed against the product in concern with the current minor release
* Created Installer framework for the current service pack release over ISMP 5.0 for all the platforms supported by the product Windows, AIX and Solaris
* Worked on cumulative service project. Designed completely new architecture for the service pack layout.
* Preparing/Attending the Interim/Internal Audits.
* Project Status Reporting and other related Escalations to the Development Manager.



Skill Matrix

Languages : Java, C, C++, Junit, Python
Operating System : Windows, Linux, AIX, Solaris.
Database/RDBMS : Oracle, DB2, MS SQL Server 2000.
Application Server : IBM WebSphere Application Server, Tomcat
Web Server : Microsoft Internet Information Server, IBM HTTP Server
Scripting : JavaScript, XML
Knowledge of : VMware, LPAR and TDD



Contact me

avinash.anand007(at)gmail.com

Location : Pune, India

InstallAnywhere global registry

Unlike InstallShield InstallAnywhere maintains its product information in a xml file (.com.zerog.registry.xml) as compared to the vpd.properties file created by Install Shield.

Some times it becomes tough for the end user or project author to get rid of a corrupt installation or uninstallation.

.com.zerog.regostry.xml file contains product name, version, UUID and description apart from the components and DIM registration information. This is typically useful if you have to identify a IA installation from a different framework say Install Shield.

This file is stored in /var directory or user on the UNIX machine if the installation is done by the root user else the file is stored in the home folder of the user.

In case of windows the file gets created under windows home drive (c: or d:)

A case study and its remedy

Q My installer/uninstaller did not run successfully! Can not proceed with a fresh installation

Ans- Remove/rename the global registry file and try running the installer/uninstaller

Q Needs to identify the components installed by the installer or need to find which components were removed by the uninstaller

Ans- Check the xml file it will contain the component information, the file in itself is self explanatory in nature.

Q. By mistake I have removed the global registry file but installation is intact, will by uninstallation work properly?

Ans- Yes absolutely, if the uninstaller does not find the global registry file it will look for the file at $USER_INSTALL_DIR$/Uninstall_$PRODUCT_NAME$/.com.zerog.registry.xml file it contains all the information about that individual installation.

So conclude with the global registry file can help the user to manipulate the installation or uninstallation in a desired manner and is sometimes very helpful in recovering the product instance after a corrupt installation