Final Cut Pro Software Deployment: My Final Deployment Success

Next week we are running a Final Cut Pro 5-day class to prepare students for the Final Cut Pro exam and get more familiar with the software.  It's great, except the software is huge and doesn't load into a monolithic system image very well.  As such, I had to find a way to deploy the software in a timely manner without a lot of work or overhead.  

I started first with a modular NetInstall image.  The idea was that I would include the software packages in the install image, it would create the image, and I could install it without worrying about configuration.  Boy was I being hopeful!  At first it would not recognize the software, and then it finally accepted the mounted disk images as I dragged them into the Automator Action.  I thought all was well, until I tested the image.  

It installed the OS just fine, but didn't include the Final Cut Pro packages.  Well, I thought, I would just need to create a base install, and then deploy the software through a package.  Seemed easy enough, at least..

Mac OS X 10.5 has a great feature with PackageMaker (available with the XCode Tools Development package) that is called a Snapshot Package.  Basically, you can install software on your Macintosh Computer while this is running, and PackageMaker can tell the difference between the original state of the machine and the new improved state.  You can then create a package that would install all the changes across the board, and you would be all set.  

I started by using PackageMaker on the MacBook Pro that I would be using for the class.  I then started the process on the MacBook Pro, installed Final Cut Pro and the Motion Content, and waited.  Once done, I stopped the snapshot, reviewed the changes, and tried to make the package.  PackageMaker crashed on me every time.  I tried three different MacBook Pros, each with the same result.  

At that point, I started to get frustrated.  I tried the same process on my office Mac Pro, and it worked!  I was able to make the snapshot image, and create the package.  I then transferred it to a MacBook Pro computer and started the package.  It ran, told me it was successful, and I was sitting on cloud nine!  Until I tried to run Final Cut Pro, that is.  It would crash every time I tried to run it.  It could have been a permissions issue, but by this time I was running out of time.  I have a busy week with a surprise class and some instructor interviews to conduct, and I needed to come up with a solution quickly.  

So, I tried installing the software on a MacBook Pro from disk images using the installer command from the Command Line.  It worked, installed a bit more than we usually do, but otherwise was successful.  Well, if this would work, surely I could create a script that would mount the images, install the packages, unmount the images, and delete the images to free up space.  It was worth a try. 

The script was easy to write, and is below: 

 

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# This script should install Final Cut Pro and Motion from disk images.
# The script will need to be run as root, which the package should do
# automatically.
# First it will mount the images, and then it will run the Installer
# scripts for Final Cut Pro, and then Motion.

# The Images are assumed to be in /Users/Shared

hdiutil mount /Users/Shared/Final Cut Studio.cdr
hdiutil mount /Users/Shared/Motion Content.cdr

# Now the Installation will be run.

installer -pkg /Volumes/Final Cut Studio/Installer/FinalCutStudio.mpkg -target /
installer -pkg /Volumes/Motion Content/Installer/MotionContent.mpkg -target /

# Once finished, the script needs to unmount the images.

umount Volumes/Final Cut Studio
umount Volumes/Motion Content

# Now no longer needed, the disk images can be deleted.

 

 

The Script worked on my inital testing, as long as it was run in sudo (installer needs to be run as root).  So I took it a step further and set it up as a package.  I opened PackageMaker again, added both the disk images to it and set the install location to the /Users/Shared directory.  I then added the script to the last package (in this case Motion) as a postinstall script, so that it would run after the Motion image was copied.  I created the images without any errors, and tried the deployment:  Success!  It installed just fine, and everything worked in Final Cut Pro that was expected to work.  

So, I then figured that if this worked, surely it would work if I added it to a NetInstall image, right?  So I created a new NetInstall image workflow that would add this image to the NetInstall.  I then tested it out, and it still didn't install the package.  So, I copied the package to the server, shared it out, sent the package to each machine, and installed it manually from there.  In the end, I got the deployment working, and the total deployment (not counting the time taken to try and create images and such) took about half the amount of time it would have if I installed everything with the CD's.  It could have taken even less time if I had Apple Remote Desktop installed and used it to deploy the image.  

So, that was my experience.  I'm going to look at the NetInstall workflow to see if I missed something in how I placed the Automator Action for the package install.  Until then, I still have a very viable deployment solution that takes less time than I would have expected.  ^_^