Installing software using the p2 director application

Terminology

• Director application: the application performing p2 operations such as install or uninstall. This application is provided by the org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director.app bundle.
• Provisioning operation: an operation installing, uninstalling features.
• Target product: the installation targeted by the provisioning operation.
• Builder: an eclipse based application containing the director application bundle and its dependents.

Running inside the target application

In this mode, the provisioning operation happens from within the targeted product that you are provisioning. It is equivalent to starting up the targeted product and using the p2 UI to perform the equivalent operation.

This means that the target application has to be in a runnable state and has to contain the director application bundle. Also, since the target product will have run, cache files will have been created in the configuration folder (e.g. configuration/org.eclipse.osgi).

The following example shows the command line used to install CDT into the SDK.

  <targetProductFolder>/eclipsec.exe
   -application org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director
   -repository https://download.eclipse.org/releases/helios/
   -installIU org.eclipse.cdt.feature.group/<version>

Provisioning without running the target application

In this case the provisioning operation happens "outside" of the targeted product. The "targeted product" is *not* started. This allows one to both modify an existing installation and create a complete installation from scratch given proper metadata.

This also has the advantage that since the targeted product does not need to be started, the provisioning operation can be performed on any platform for any other platform (e.g. on my linux machine, one can add plug-ins to a windows-based target application).

Installing / uninstalling IUs into a target product

To install or uninstall something into an existing target product a few extra arguments than for the "inside" mode need to be set. These mostly consist in providing the provisioning operation the ID of the profile it needs to operate on, and where it is located on disk.

For example, if from a directory called "d:\builder" containing the builder, you want to install CDT into an existing SDK located into "d:\eclipse", you would use the following command line.

   d:\builder\eclipsec.exe
   -application org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director
   -repository https://download.eclipse.org/releases/helios/
   -installIU org.eclipse.cdt.feature.group
   -tag AddCDT
   -destination d:/eclipse/
   -profile SDKProfile

Note that there is no need to describe the os/ws/arch of the platform being targeted because all this information is already available in the profile of the application in which we are provisioning.

Installing a complete product

The creation of a complete product using the director application only needs a few extra arguments compared to the previous example. Most of these consist of values used to initialize the profile in which the application will be provisioned.

The following example demonstrates how to create a linux/gtk installation of the Eclipse SDK provisioned into a folder called "d:\eclipse" using a director application located in "d:\builder".

   d:\builder\eclipsec.exe
   -application org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director
   -repository https://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/3.6
   -installIU org.eclipse.sdk.ide
   -tag InitialState
   -destination d:/eclipse/
   -profile SDKProfile
   -profileProperties org.eclipse.update.install.features=true
   -bundlepool d:/eclipse/
   -p2.os linux
   -p2.ws gtk
   -p2.arch x86
   -roaming
 

The -p2.* arguments describe the os/ws/arch that the provisioned product is targeting.

Installing a complete product for macOS

The creation of a complete product for the macOS Operating System requires that the destination folder end with ".app/" as in the following example.

 
   d:\builder\eclipsec.exe
   -nosplash
   -application org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director
   -repository https://download.eclipse.org/releases/mars
   -installIU org.eclipse.sdk.ide
   -tag InitialState
   -destination d:/eclipse/MyApp.app/
   -profile SDKProfile
   -profileProperties org.eclipse.update.install.features=true
   -p2.os macosx
   -p2.ws cocoa
   -p2.arch x86_64
   -roaming
 

For a macOS App product, you may also want to edit the Info.plist file, such as to change CFBundleName to the name of your product.

Arguments Description

• -application org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director: the application ID.
• -metadataRepository: a comma separated list of metadata repository URLs where the software to be installed can be found.
• -artifactRepository: a comma separated list of artifact repository URLs where the software artifacts can be found.
• -repository: a comma separated list of repository URL where each entry denotes colocated meta-data and artifact repositories.
• -installIU: a comma separated list of IUs to install. Each entry in the list is in the form <id> [ '/' <version> ]. If you are looking to install a feature, the identifier of the feature has to be suffixed with ".feature.group".
• -uninstallIU: a comma separated list of IUs to uninstall. Each entry in the list is in the form <id> [ '/' <version> ].
• -revert: Revert the installation to a previous state. The previous state can either be a tag (see -tag / -listtags) or a previous profile state [ the number representing the previous state of the profile as found in p2/org.eclipse.equinox.p2.engine/<profileId>/ ].
• -purgeHistory: Remove the history of the profile registry.
• -destination: the path of a folder in which the targeted product is located. For "macosx", it must end with ".app/".
• -list: lists all IU's found in the given repositories in a property like format. The optional arguments can be an comma separated list of entries where each entry is in the form <id> [ '/' <version> ], or a p2 QL query prefixed with Q:, or Q:group as shortcut for groups.
• -listTags: list all the tags found for the given profile.
• -listInstalledRoots: list all the roots IUs found in the given profile. Each entry is the list in the form id / version
• -listFormat: formats the list of IUs according to the given string. Use ${<property>} to access IU properties, e.g. ${org.eclipse.equinox.p2.name} for the IU's name. ID and version of an IU are available through ${id} and ${version}.
• -profile: the profile id containing the description of the targeted product. This ID is is defined by the eclipse.p2.profile property contained in the config.ini of the targeted product. For the Eclipse SDK the ID is "SDKProfile"
• -profileProperties: a comma separated list of <key>=<value> pair. The property org.eclipse.update.install.features=true will cause the update manager features to be installed.
• -bundlepool: the location of where the plug-ins and features will be stored. This value is only taken into account when a new profile is created. For an application where all the bundles are located into the plugins/ folder of the destination, set it to <destination>.
• -p2.os: the OS to use when the profile is created. This will be used to filter which OS specific installable units need to be installed.
• -p2.ws: the windowing system to use when the profile is created. This will be used to filter which WS specific installable units need to be installed.
• -p2.arch: the architecture to use when the profile is created. This will be used to filter which architecture specific installable units need to be installed.
• -roaming: indicates that the product resulting from the installation can be moved. This property only makes sense when the destination and bundle pool are in the same location. This value is only taken into account when the profile is created.
• -shared: use a shared location for the install. The path defaults to ${user.home}/.p2.
• -tag: a label. This allows to tag the profile state resulting from the operation being executed.
• -verifyOnly: only verify that the actions can be performed. Don't actually install or remove anything.