NSIS Auto-Update

[ghost]

Creating this issue just to keep track of status, or when it is planned.

[black-snow]

@develar @kunkinkan How's this gonna work? Will it be analogue to Squirrel?

[develar]

@black-snow yes, only feed url will be changed in the user code. Auto-update API impl will be bundled.

[black-snow]

Great. How are things going? Any help needed?

[atypicalprogrammer]

Will this be better than Squirrel auto-update? I don't like with them that I cannot control the process; I should be able to allow the user to choose whether or not to update to the newest version, instead of forcing it. (And also; better security. Allow me access to the downloaded auto-update so I can for example compare md5 hashes, etc). So a method after downloading the update to verify it.

[black-snow]

@atypicalprogrammer afaik Squirrel does verify checksums.

[atypicalprogrammer]

@black-snow how do you figure? I'm talking about me providing a txt file with a checksum to compare with a downloaded file. It's a custom function that should be possible to provide better security. Something that is ran before the update itself is installed, simply a function that can cancel the further progression of install. The checksum validation I can add myself.

[develar]

Started to work on this.

First version will support only Bintray:

• no rate limits (opposite to GitHub) to access latest version and version files. Rate limit free, no need to parse html or http headers, just use Rest API (opposite to GitHub — token requirement is not user-friendly).
• better security — Bintray reports file sha256/sha1 on version files request. We use it to verify downloaded file (because windows just sucks opposite to macOS — we cannot rely on code sign completely).
• nsis-auto-updater will be published to NPM, but only to provide flexibility — will be just prebundled on pack.
• no RELEASES file. Yep!

[zh99998]

any good news now?

[develar]

Miracles happens. Serverless macOS auto-update is implemented in the electron-builder 11.3.0 and electron-auto-updater 1.0.0 #1089 (comment)

[rsaccon]

@develar thanks to make the miracle happen ! It is like Santa Claus came for a second round ! I Look forward to rip out my own hackish serverside workarounds.

[develar]

electron-auto-updater renamed to electron-updater

[Timer]

Does electron-updater work with https://github.com/GitbookIO/nuts?

[jessb321]

@Timer nah you dont need it, its serverless. have a look here
although im not sure if you mean for generic https server

[Timer]

I'd like to configure nuts to be used as a generic https server if possible -- my repos are private & I still like having my artifacts published on github.

[kevinbuhmann]

@Timer, I have written a node Express server that does that. I can post the code if you want.

[Timer]

That would be much appreciated @kevinphelps; it would save me quite a bit of time! Thanks! 💯

[develar]

@Timer for your case I suggest amazon s3 — more robust because you don't need to maintain own server / https cert. You can be sure always that it works and uptime 100%. Yes, currently artifacts are not uploaded automatically, but you can file issue / use another tool to publish artifacts.

[Timer]

@develar perhaps if I run into some free time I could make a small tool to do that -- but I was planning on using heroku anyway which is managed and has https.

I still don't believe the docs are very clear explaining what is required from a generic server... Do I just need to host latest.yml and latest-mac.json at the root of the generic URL I specify with the binaries available at the provided links in those files (e.g. can I have all assets in the same s3 bucket, e.g. s3.amazonaws.com/example/latest-mac.json & s3.amazonaws.com/example/latest-mac-*.zip)?

[develar]

Do I just need to host

Yes. Nothing more. Create any path as you want in the bucket (e.g. test in the bucket develar) and

{
  provider: "generic",
  url: "https://develar.s3.amazonaws.com/test",
}

[Timer]

Can the link in latest-mac.json be relative or does it have to be absolute?

[develar]

@Timer Squirrel.Mac issue. Electron-builder cannot fix it.

[Timer]

Neat @develar, thanks for all your help!
I took the time to make a small app that mirrors github releases to S3, and I modify the JSON file for the new URL path. 😄

[andrewjaykeller]

@kevinphelps would love to see the Heroku app you made! My repos are private. Thanks for any and all time!

I modify the JSON file for the new URL path

@Timer are you doing this manually each time you build?

[andrewjaykeller]

@develar is there a way to include release notes with generic s3 bucket?

Feature request #1174

[develar]

@aj-ptw Please file new issue about it.

[kevinbuhmann]

@Timer @aj-ptw I extracted my update server code and pushed it this repo: https://github.com/kevinphelps/electron-update-server. Let me know if you have any questions. Sorry if this seems overbuilt, I extracted it from my update/login/api server. It has all the groundwork for adding additional endpoints, though.

[Timer]

Awesome @kevinphelps 💯!

@aj-ptw I change it automatically -- see https://github.com/Timer/electron-release-s3-sync/blob/master/src/index.js#L97-L105.
If you just want to sync your latest release with s3, you can install electron-release-s3-sync and run it with the appropriate env vars (GH_USER, GH_TOKEN, GH_ORG, GH_REPO, AWS_BUCKET, AWS_BUCKET_URL).
Looks something like this:

e.g.

$ yarn add electron-release-s3-sync --dev
- or -
$ npm i electron-release-s3-sync --save-dev

$ ./node_modules/.bin/electron-release-s3-sync

I also added it to my package.json scripts, "sync": "env-cmd .env electron-release-s3-sync".

[develar]

Using nuts as router for latest version (or as proxy for private GitHub repo): http://electron-builder.slackarchive.io/general/-/1485421231.000003/1485932834.000105/1485932834000105/ (slack link: https://electron-builder.slack.com/archives/general/p1485932834000105?thread_ts=1485886051.000072&cid=C3X4YCA14)

[sylhero]

I'm using "electron": "^1.4.15" "electron-builder": "^12.0.3" and electron-updater": "^1.4.2". I used the
autoUpdater.setFeedURL({ provider: 'generic', url: 'https://s3/release' });
but I don't see the latest.yaml generated unless I config the build.publish. Anyone has the same issue?

[bartekczyz]

@sylhero I've experienced the same thing, updating electron-builder to 13.x.x ( 13.3.1 in my case ) helped.

[ccorcos]

where do these json and yml files come from?

[black-snow]

@ccorcos which files do you mean? latest.yml?

[ccorcos]

yes: latest.yaml and latest.json