Apple - Installing .pkg with terminal ?
/usr/sbin/installer
The installer command is used to install Mac OS X installer packages to a specified domain or volume. The installer command installs a single package per invocation, which is specified with the -package parameter ( -pkg is accepted as a synonym). It may be either a single package or a metapackage. In the case of the metapackage, the packages which are part of the default install will be installed unless disqualified by a package's check tool(s).
See man installer
for the full functionality. Often
sudo installer -pkg /path/to/package.pkg -target /
is all that's needed. Here /
is the mount point of Macintosh HD
volume. -target
accepts path like "/Volumes/Macintosh HD"
, or /dev/disk0
also.
Just in case it's needed; if you want to installer a .pkg without root access:
installer -pkg myapp.pkg -target CurrentUserHomeDirectory
will install the package in ~/Applications.
Install all .pkg
files from the current folder to /Applications
:
for f in *.pkg ;
do sudo installer -verbose -pkg "$f" -target /
done
As an alternative you can install the packages to your home folder with -target ~
. They will end up in /Users/<your_account>/Applications
unless a specific path is predefined in the installer.
If you need to see what exactly a pkg installer script contains and what pre- and post-install scripts will be run then check out SuspiciousPackage (freeware), and use quick preview from Finder when a
.pkg
file is selected. Pressing spacebar in Finder with the selected file should work too.