Stupid Install macOS High Sierra Tricks

GregN

While working on solving the problem of not getting a “stub” Install macOS High Sierra application, I stumbled across another way to get a full installer.

I present this merely as an oddity and a point of interest. I make no claims as to whether or not you should use this information in any way for ill or for good.

If you run a local Apple software update server, you may have noticed a new product: product ID 091-34298 — “Install macOS High Sierra”.  I use Reposado to run a local softwareupdate server:

# ./repoutil --info 091-34298
Product:       091-34298
Title:         Install macOS High Sierra
Version:       10.13
Size:          5.8 GB
Post Date:     2017-09-25 16:56:37
RestartNeeded: No
Status:        Downloaded
Location:      /disk1/swupd/html/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298
AppleCatalogs:
               https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog
               https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-10.12-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog
               https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-10.13-10.12-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog
Branches:
               release
               testing
HTML Description:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head><title></title></head>
<body></body>
</html>

We can use the location printed above to find the actual files on disk:

# ls /disk1/swupd/html/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298/almpfkbhyxnsgbxxqhoqo7sb40w3uip0wk/
091-34298.ar.dist        091-34298.ru.dist
091-34298.ca.dist        091-34298.sk.dist
091-34298.cs.dist        091-34298.Spanish.dist
091-34298.da.dist        091-34298.sv.dist
091-34298.Dutch.dist     091-34298.th.dist
091-34298.el.dist        091-34298.tr.dist
091-34298.English.dist   091-34298.uk.dist
091-34298.es_419.dist    091-34298.vi.dist
091-34298.fi.dist        091-34298.zh_CN.dist
091-34298.French.dist    091-34298.zh_TW.dist
091-34298.German.dist    AppleDiagnostics.chunklist
091-34298.he.dist        AppleDiagnostics.dmg
091-34298.hi.dist        BaseSystem.chunklist
091-34298.hr.dist        BaseSystem.dmg
091-34298.hu.dist        InstallAssistantAuto.pkg
091-34298.id.dist        InstallAssistantAuto.pkm
091-34298.Italian.dist   InstallAssistantAuto.smd
091-34298.Japanese.dist  InstallESDDmg.chunklist
091-34298.ko.dist        InstallESDDmg.pkg
091-34298.ms.dist        InstallESDDmg.pkm
091-34298.no.dist        InstallInfo.plist
091-34298.pl.dist        OSInstall.mpkg
091-34298.pt.dist        RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkg
091-34298.pt_PT.dist     RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkm
091-34298.ro.dist

The contents of a softwareupdate product directory are very much like an exploded/expanded distribution package. Not very well-known is that we can sometimes trick Apple’s installer to install these. If we can get this directory copied to (or mounted via afp, smb or nfs on) a Mac (my Reposado server is on a Linux box), we can do this:

sudo installer -pkg /path/to/091-34298.English.dist -target /

or

open /path/to/091-34298.English.dist -a Installer.app

If you do the latter, you’ll need to click through the Installer like you would with any other package.

The result? A functional “Install macOS High Sierra.app” in /Applications.

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Stupid Install macOS High Sierra Tricks

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