deb/rpm agent installation generator

[BloodyIron]

Can we please get the ability to export agent install sources via generated .deb and .rpm formats? This way we could also maybe even set up our own package repos for this kind of thing so they keep getting updated from... "us", and in a way that the package managers are aware of. It would drastically increase the trust factor for those installing agents on.

[si458]

This is a community project so everyone is welcome to add new feature!

We welcome PRs to add in this feature if u have it already working :)

But currently all u need to do is download the file then run ./meshagent64 -install so u dont really need a deb/rpm for this

[BloodyIron]

But that doesn't work for ecosystems that require installation only via the package manager via direct .deb / .rpm or a package repository. When literally everything else on a system (Linux in this case) is installed via the package manager, one single thing not being installed via that mechanism gets forgotten and not updated.

I'm not a software developer, I created a feature request for "whenever possible", because this really is a worthwhile feature to add. I've worked in extremely large environments and many require this kind of packaging as part of policy.

[si458]

Im still not too sure how we could achieve this because we customise the binary with an msh file and a few other things, so it would have to like be built on the fly?

We will surely look into it but it won't be for awhile as we have alot of other things to still look into/fix

[fz0000]

That's an good idea, but if MeshCentral is installed on a Windows server, generating .deb/.rpm packages is challenging.

Taking .deb file as an example, the solutions I can think of are as follows:

1. We could add the node-deb npm package for creating .deb file.
   But it may not run natively on Windows. And it's not ideal to ask users to install Unix-like terminals such as WSL, Docker or Git Bash.
2. Since the .deb file is fundamentally an ar archive, we could use our own script or tool to create the folder structure, add the necessary files, and package them via tar command.
   However, this approach can be quite complex, and there is no guarantee of success.

[si458]

@fz0000 this is the problem we have with the mac agent.
The gent who did a pr to fix the mac agent went out his way and made it so it builds and code-signs an actual .app file but u can't code-sign on windows for mac
So we need a proper drawing board for this feature and how we can do it etc

[fz0000]

@si458 is it possible to use a java client, similar to Jenkins? Although that would be a big change.

[si458]

We could include external binarys/files and run those, if they are vetted etc, but not everyone has java installed

[DaanSelen]

I would love to check out and maybe rework the agent installation method