How to unpack and pack pkg file

Question

I have a pkg file created by Install Maker for Mac  I want to replace one file in pkg  But I must do this under Linux system  because this is a part of download process  When user starts to download file server must replace one file in pkg  I have a solution how unpack pkg and replace a file but I dont know how pack again to pkg  http   emresaglam com blog 1035 http   ilostmynotes blogspot com 2012 06 mac-os-x-pkg-bom-files-package html

User · Answer

If you are experiencing errors during PKG installation following the accepted answer, I will give you another procedure that worked for me (please note the little changes to xar, cpio and mkbom commands):

mkdir Foo
cd Foo
xar -xf ../Foo.pkg
cd foo.pkg
cat Payload | gunzip -dc | cpio -i
# edit Foo.app/*
rm Payload
find ./Foo.app | cpio -o --format odc --owner 0:80 | gzip -c > Payload
mkbom -u 0 -g 80 Foo.app Bom # or edit Bom
# edit PackageInfo
rm -rf Foo.app
cd ..
xar --compression none -cf ../Foo-new.pkg

The resulted PKG will have no compression, cpio now uses odc format and specify the owner of the file as well as mkbom.

User · Answer

Packages are just  xar archives with a different extension and a specified file hierarchy  Unfortunately  part of that file hierarchy is a cpio gz archive of the actual installables  and usually that s what you want to edit  And there s also a Bom file that includes information on the files inside that cpio archive  and a PackageInfo file that includes summary information   If you really do just need to edit one of the info files  that s simple   mkdir Foo cd Foo xar -xf    Foo pkg   edit stuff xar -cf    Foo-new pkg     But if you need to edit the installable files   mkdir Foo cd Foo xar -xf    Foo pkg cd foo pkg cat Payload   gunzip -dc  cpio -i   edit Foo app   rm Payload find   Foo app   cpio -o   gzip -c  gt  Payload mkbom Foo app Bom   or edit Bom   edit PackageInfo rm -rf Foo app cd    xar -cf    Foo-new pkg   I believe you can get mkbom  and lsbom  for most linux distros   If you can get ditto  that makes things even easier  but I m not sure if that s nearly as ubiquitously available

User · Answer

shrx I ve succeeded to unpack the BSD pkg  part of the Yosemite installer  by using  pbzx  command   pbzx  lt pkg gt    cpio -idmu  The  pbzx  command can be downloaded from the following link    pbzx Stream Parser

User · Answer

You might want to look into my fork of pbzx here  https   github com NiklasRosenstein pbzx  It allows you to stream pbzx files that are not wrapped in a XAR archive  I ve experienced this with recent XCode Command-Line Tools Disk Images  eg  10 12 XCode 8    pbzx -n Payload   cpio -i

User · Answer

Here is a bash script inspired by abarnert s answer which will unpack a package named MyPackage pkg into a subfolder named MyPackage pkg and then open the folder in Finder          usr bin env bash     filename          dirname    filename            pkgutil --expand   filename    dirname      cd   dirname      tar xvf Payload     open     Usage       pkg-upack sh MyPackage pkg      Warning  This will not work in all cases  and will fail with certain files  e g  the PKGs inside the OSX system installer  If you want to peek inside the pkg file and see what s inside  you can try SuspiciousPackage  free app   and if you need more options such as selectively unpacking specific files  then have a look at Pacifist  nagware

User · Answer

In addition to what  abarnert said  I today had to find out that the default cpio utility on Mountain Lion uses a different archive format per default  not sure which   even with the man page stating it would use the old cpio odc format  So  if anyone stumbles upon the cpio read error  bad file format message while trying to install his her manipulated packages  be sure to include the format in the re-pack step   find   Foo app   cpio -o --format odc   gzip -c  gt  Payload

[macos] How to unpack and pack pkg file?

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