Chocolatey Package
Last updated
Last updated
After the repository creation and preparation of packaging with Jumpstarter, this article will show you all the necessary steps to edit, customize, and deploy a Chocolatey package.
Before you can deploy a package to the RealmJoin app store you have to edit your package. The following section will show you how you can edit your package files.
.gitlab-ci.ymlThe .gitlab-ci.ymlfile contains the build and deploy information. In the build stage, the build-deploy.ps1 helper script is called, while the argument -build indicates the build stage and -choco indicates the package type Chocolatey.
In the deploy stage, the build-deploy.ps1 helper script is called, while the argument -deploy indicates the deploy stage and -choco indicates the package type Chocolatey.
There are 6 different sample files (might be already deleted when using the Jumpstarter script and selecting a specific package type), while those starting with Sample1* are considered outdated. Therefore, select and edit the most fitting Sample0*.gitlab-ci.yml file and delete the other ones. You might need to adjust the content. Remove the prefix of the filename and save it as .gitlab-ci.yml.
choco-package.nuspecThe choco-package.nuspec file contains the metadata according to the desired software. If you did not use Jumpstarter manually edit the following values:
id: flavour-vendor-program. This is the chocolatey package ID.
version: Package version W.X.Y.Z.
title: Displayed name of the package.
description: Description of the package.
Move the executables, installer or zip files into the subfolder blobs. Make sure the file names do not contain spaces or irregular characters but do contain the version number.
Inside the blobs subfolder run mk_hash.cmd. Alternatively, open a PowerShell, navigate to blobs subfolder and execute the following command:
A *.sha256 file is created for every item in the folder.
tools\chocolateyInstall.ps1Based on the samples in the file, choose the most fitting one and adapt accordingly. To add silent installation parameters, use the -silentArgs parameter. If the setup file is a MSI file, silent installation arguments are automatically added. For additional arguments (like components) use additional -additionalArgs.
tools\userInstall.ps1If your Chocolatey package contains user settings place a userInstall.ps1 file inside the tools folder. If you used Jumpstarter this file should already exist.
This file may contain various modifications and adjustments, e.g. registry keys.
Additional files that may be needed during the installation should be placed inside the tools folder. Examples are .reg or .ini files. If those files exceed a file size of approx. 1 MB they should better be placed inside the blobs folder.
Readme.mdIf you have any further information you can write them down in the Readme.md, like a short documentation or a internal messages. If you do not need a Readme.md you can safely delete it.
For listing the package in the RealmJoin app store four additional files are needed, which should have already been created by using Jumpstarter. If the packages should not be listed in the app store you can safely delete these fours files:
These are the needed files:
package-description.md: Short description of the packaged application
package-icon.png: The application icon. Must be .png, preferably high-res and quadratic.
package-info.json: Contains information for the app store, mainly categories and package settings (e. g. autoUpgrade, hasUserPart)
package-technicalhelp.md: Explanation of possible package installation arguments and further noteworthy information, like auto-update mechanism or autostart.
The following screenshot shows a Google Chrome package in the RealmJoin app store. You can see the Google Chrome icon (package-icon.png), a short description of Google Chrome (package-description.md) and you can further technical information (package-technicalhelp.md). You do not see package-info.json because it works in the background.
Commit your changes and push the project to GitLab.
Open the project site in the RealmJoin GitLab with a browser.
Navigate to Pipelines, which can be found under the CI / CD section on the left side.
For each commit you will see two stages:
The first one, build, will start automatically
After build has finished (green checkmark), run the second one, deploy. To do that, first click the grey icon next to the green checkmark, then click the play button.
After the successful deployment, the package can be found in the Chocolatey library and can be added to the RealmJoin backend. See chapter Managing RealmJoin for information on assigning packages.
This section gives some details about features that may be used or needed in more complex Chocolatey packages.
In some cases .msi or .exe installers require additional files in their execution folder. It is possible to merge the installer and additional files in a zip container and execute the installer without unpacking forehand.
To do so, the zip container is put into the blobs folder and a hash value has to be created. In the chocolateyInstall.ps1, the install command may be used as usual, but the installer file has to be escaped with #, installation parameters can be provided the usual way:
The Install-ChocolateyRealmjoinPackage command can be run with the execution of pre-actions, which will be executed before the setup starts:
The Install-ChocolateyRealmjoinPackage command can be run with the execution of post-actions, which will be executed after the setup finished successfully:
To utilize parameters in Chocolatey packages, which have been entered in the optional Args text field, you need to include the following cmdlet in your chocolateyInstall.ps1 script:
Import-ChocolateyRealmjoinPackageParameters
The Chocolatey extension now parses the argument string and automatically creates and fills the variables with the following pattern:
/Key:xx-yy-zz
$packParamKey (with value xx-yy-zz)
/Language:EN
$packParamLanguage (with value EN)
Those variables may now be used for any purposes within the chocolateyInstall.ps1 script.
