appleloops

A utility to manage the deployment of the additional audio content Apple provides for GarageBand, Logic Pro X, and MainStage 3.

2022-05-10

For several personal and private reasons, I will no longer be able to actively maintain this repo.

If anyone would like to fork it off and take over active maintenance/create a new tool in Swift, or better yet, file feedback with Apple to provide a tool to deploy these packages automatically, please feel free to do so.

The most recent build is available from the dev branch.

This repo will be marked read only from now on. No further support will be available.

Thank you to everyone that has helped out with testing this over the years.

Carl.

2020-11-20 - Python 2 Deprecation:

• The next release of appleloops will be properly Python 3 only and will hard exit if the version is not at least 3.7.9.

What's New in v3.1.4+

• The build.sh script can be run with custom python paths provided.
  For example: ./build.sh --python="/usr/local/bin/python3.7"

What's New in v3.0.0+

• Supports Python 3 (tested on Python 3.7.3) and Python 2.7.10 (as ships with macOS).
• Now ships as a prebuilt zipapp.
• Pre built installer package is available. Installs to /usr/local/bin.
• Now using /usr/bin/env python. Beware of Python versions when deploying!.
• Supports deploying packages from a DMG file hosted over HTTP/HTTPS (use the --pkg-server flag and supply the full HTTP path to the DMG).
• Building a DMG file now uses a temporary sparse image file to download packages directly into, then converts it to a DMG.
  • APFS file system supported with the --APFS flag. Defaults to HFS+ file system.
  • DMG's are now read only, and compressed.
  • DMG's will be written over if the same filename is specified.
  • Specifying a custom volume name is not allowed. Volume name defaults to appleloops to facilitate deploying via DMG.
• Supports deploying packages for a specific application when using --deployment - use the -a/--apps <appname> argument.
• Downloading now replicates the source folder structure, regardless.
• Improved handling of scenarios where one package is considered mandatory for one application, but optional for another.
• Implemented additional file path check based on the information in the property lists to determine if the package is installed.
• Added flexibility to handle scenarios where Apple's "mirrored" source property list files are not kept updated inline with the file that ships with specific apps.
• Pure silent mode. No output at all (well, there shouldn't be any).
• Makefile to build a package file for distribution (a package will be pre-built).
• Added new --compare argument to enable a basic comparison of one package 'release' to another 'release'.
• No longer requesting Content-Size header when analysing installed pacakges. This saves a teeny-tiny bit of time, but worth it.
• Logging will now default to ~/Library/Logs/appleloops.log unless sudo is invoked, in which case the log output is /var/log/appleloops.log.
  • Logs automatically rollover on each run.
• Invoking DEBUG logging now requires using --log-level DEBUG.
• Default paths for package downloads should default to /tmp/appleloops
• Temporary working path for any downloaded property list files is /var/folders/<incomprehensible gibberish>/com.github.carlashley.appleloops.
  • This gets cleaned up once work is finished.
• No longer relying on sourcing the property list files from Apple's audiocontentdownload server when deploying or if the app is installed on the same system.
  • Note, if you do need to target the packages for a specific release, use the --supported-plists argument to identify which property list files can be used when using the -p/--plist argument.

Whats Deprecated in v3.0.0+

A number of previous features are being deprecated from v3.0.0 onwards to avoid certain complexities.

• Hard-linking to already downloaded files (due to now replicating the Apple source folder path when downloading).
• "Flat" directory structures for downloaded content no longer supported.
• Specifying a disk space threshold to reserve.
  • When deploying, the goal is to ensure all the packages of either mandatory/optional types get installed.
• No longer a fully self contained script (script is now split out into a python package). Script is now zipped using zipapp Python 3 built-in.
• Specifying a log path is no longer supported.
• Will install all mandatory packages in deployment mode or will not install them at all. Same for optional packages.
• --debug hard deprecated for --log <level>. For example: --log DEBUG.
• Python 2.x support will be dropped in a future release in keeping with Apple's stance on Python shipping in future macOS releases. Will require Python 3.x to be installed (I don't currently have plans to write this in Swift).
  • 2019-11-09 Note: When Apple removes Python 2 from macOS, this will only be tested/built against a Python 3 environment.
• Determining the --pkg-server path based on the munki configuration on a machine that is managed with munki is no longer supported.
• Automatically determining a Caching Server source to use is no longer supported. Specifying the server will be required if the -c/--cache-server argument is used.

Requirements

• macOS.
• Any version of Python from 2.7.10 onwards.
  • Tested on Python 2.7.10 (macOS only, not guaranteed to work in macOS 10.15).
  • Tested on Python 3.7.3 (macOS only, may be required if Python 2 does not ship with this release of macOS).
• Deploying packages will require any or a combination of these apps to be installed (the packages run checks at install time to check):
  • GarageBand.
  • Logic Pro X.
  • MainStage 3.
• If a local HTTP mirror is being used, appleloops expects to find the packages in the same folder path as they exist on the Apple audio content servers. For example, https://example.org/appleloops/lp10_ms3_content_YYYY where YYYY is a year value. If a file cannot be found here, it will fall back to the Apple audio content servers.
• If a local Caching Server is being used, you will need to provide the correct Caching Server address, such as https://example.org:43012.
• Your firewall/proxy must whitelist https://audiocontentdownload.apple.com - if your network team isn't already whitelisting all of 17.0.0.0/8, well, it's a good time to start whitelisting it.
• Whitelisting https://raw.githubusercontent.com is still (currently) a requirement.
• Access to https://audiocontentdownload.apple.com is a requirement.
• Proxies may need to be managed via environment variables set prior to running the utility.

Building Your Own

To "build" your own version, you will need to have Python 3 installed for zipapp to work.

1. Clone this repo.
2. cd appleloops
3. ./build.sh
4. Package gets built into dist/pkg

Code Signing

This is not code signed. Feel free to code sign at your own discretion for your use case. WARNING Please inspect the source before code signing to ensure this is the right action for you.

Notarization

This is not notarized. Feel free to notarize at your own discretion for your use case. WARNING Please inspect the source before notarizing to ensure this is the right action for you.

Archived Version

An unsupported archived repository of the older versions of this utility is available here: https://github.com/carlashley/appleloops_archive.

License

This is licensed using the Apache License, Version 2.0.