macOS installer pkg fails with command-line install

[gregneagle]

Issue Description

TL; DR: attempts to upgrade Podman by installing the current release package on macOS fail.

Attempting to install the amd64-4.4.3 package for macOS from the command line fails, when run as root, or via sudo:

(as root)
# installer -pkg podman-installer-macos-amd64-4.4.3.pkg -target /
installer: Package name is Podman 4.4.3
installer: Upgrading at base path /
installer: The upgrade failed. (The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. An error occurred while running scripts from the package “podman-installer-macos-amd64-4.4.3.pkg”.)

(via sudo)
$ sudo installer -pkg podman-installer-macos-amd64-4.4.3.pkg -target /
installer: Package name is Podman 4.4.3
installer: Upgrading at base path /
installer: The upgrade failed. (The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. An error occurred while running scripts from the package “podman-installer-macos-amd64-4.4.3.pkg”.)

The issue is in the postinstall script:

#!/bin/bash

set -e

echo "/opt/podman/bin" > /etc/paths.d/podman-pkg

ln -s /opt/podman/bin/podman-mac-helper /opt/podman/qemu/bin/podman-mac-helper
ln -s /opt/podman/bin/gvproxy /opt/podman/qemu/bin/gvproxy

/opt/podman/bin/podman-mac-helper install

Specifically, /opt/podman/bin/podman-mac-helper install. This tool fails a variety of ways. First: if an older version of Podman is already installed:

bash-3.2# /opt/podman/bin/podman-mac-helper install
Error: helper is already installed, uninstall first

Instead of failing, it should either upgrade the tool, or do the uninstall/install dance. But just failing the entire install seems like a bad idea.

I've also seen it fail with

Error: unexpected root user

Steps to reproduce the issue

Steps to reproduce the issue

1. Install an older release of Podman
2. Download and install the current release: sudo installer -pkg podman-installer-macos-amd64-4.4.3.pkg -target /

Describe the results you received

installer: The upgrade failed. (The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. An error occurred while running scripts from the package “podman-installer-macos-amd64-4.4.3.pkg”.)

Describe the results you expected

Successful install

podman info output

podman 4.4.3, macOS, amd64 (x86_64)

Podman in a container

No

Privileged Or Rootless

None

Upstream Latest Release

Yes

Additional environment details

Additional environment details

Additional information

Additional information like issue happens only occasionally or issue happens with a particular architecture or on a particular setting

[Luap99]

Likely caused by #17786.
IMO If the helper is already installed it should not be treated as error in the podman-mac-helper binary.

For the unexpected root user I am not so sure, the auto install was added in #16565
The mac helper is no hard requirement so I assume it would be better to add || : to make the install script ignore errors for it. This would at least restore the previous behaviour.

cc @anjannath @benoitf @n1hility

[benoitf]

yes if helper is already installed it should just continue

[anjannath]

maybe we should change it to always try to uninstall first with /opt/podman/bin/podman-mac-helper uninstall || true and then install

edit: uninstall currently doesn't return non-zero exit code on error

[Luap99]

Please see #17916 for a potential fix.

[gregneagle]

If I completely remove podman (sudo rm -rf /opt/podman) and restart, and then attempt (as root) to install podman,

bash-3.2# installer -pkg podman-installer-macos-amd64-4.4.3.pkg -target /
installer: Package name is Podman 4.4.3
installer: Installing at base path /
installer: The install failed. (The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. An error occurred while running scripts from the package “podman-installer-macos-amd64-4.4.3.pkg”.)

Snippet from /var/log/install.log:

2023-03-24 09:30:32-07 arethafranklin installd[1531]: PackageKit (package_script_service): Preparing to execute script "./postinstall" in /private/tmp/PKInstallSandbox.TXcjQ9/Scripts/com.redhat.podman.94dOQD
2023-03-24 09:30:32-07 arethafranklin package_script_service[2019]: PackageKit: Executing script "postinstall" in /tmp/PKInstallSandbox.TXcjQ9/Scripts/com.redhat.podman.94dOQD
2023-03-24 09:30:32-07 arethafranklin package_script_service[2019]: Set responsibility to pid: 2853, responsible_path: /usr/sbin/installer
2023-03-24 09:30:32-07 arethafranklin package_script_service[2019]: ./postinstall: Error: unexpected root user

This is podman-mac-helper failing with

Error: unexpected root user

Would you like this opened as a separate issue, or are you happy with just ignoring the error as you do here: #17916

[Luap99]

you need to run it with sudo AFAICT so it can get your user id from the sudo env vars

[gregneagle]

That's not helpful in a mass-deployment scenario. Software is not installed interactively by users -- we have a software distribution tool that runs as root. (In our case, we use Munki, but this would be the case with any software management tool: Jamf, Addigy, VMware Workspace ONE, SimpleMDM, FileWave, etc, or even configuration management tools like Ansible, Puppet, Chef, or SaltStack)

[benoitf]

will it be included in an 4.4.4 or an updated 4.4.3 .PKG packages ?

[gregneagle]

I'd really hope it would be in a 4.4.4 release, or a 4.4.3.x release. It's difficult to manage/track packages that are different, but have the same version number.

[Luap99]

see the discussion on the PR, goal is to create a 4.4.4 version

[LtCmdrScott]

Still having this issue in 4.5.1. Getting Error: unexpected root user when running command via zsh script: "sudo "/opt/podman/bin/podman-mac-helper" install || true"

[n1hility]

@LtCmdrScott The install process needs to know the user to install the command with, so if it cant determine this it will fail. "Getting Error: unexpected root user" can happen if the user running the sudo command was root, and SUDO_USER wasn't defined (normally defined by sudo to the calling user [or mirrored to allow nesting]). One way this can occur is if the environment was dropped via some other nested call to other user invoking tools (e.g. su ).

[LtCmdrScott]

So I did this in my script:

LoggedInUser=$( echo "show State:/Users/ConsoleUser" | /usr/sbin/scutil | /usr/bin/awk '/Name :/ && ! /loginwindow/ { print $3 }' )
export SUDO_USER=${LoggedInUser}
sudo "/opt/podman/bin/podman-mac-helper" install

and I am still getting "Error: unexpected root user". What did I miss?

This is being run as a post install script from JAMF...When installing this software, I must install everything during installation as the users doesn't have admin rights to do this afterwards...