With the release of Sophos Enterprise Anti-Virus 9.2.x, Sophos changed how their enterprise antivirus solution for Macs was installed. While previous versions of Sophos Enterprise used an Apple installer metapackage, Sophos has now switched to using an application to install their enterprise antivirus software.
This switch was a problem for Mac admins who wanted to deploy Sophos Enterprise Anti-Virus 9.2.x, as the previously-available installer package had simplified the task of deployment. The new Sophos Enterprise Anti-Virus 9.2.x install application added further complexity by storing many of the installer’s files and other components outside the application in a separate Sophos Installer Components directory.
However, after doing some research and testing, it looks like it is possible to repackage Sophos Enterprise 9.2.x for deployment. For more details, see below the jump.
Sophos’ application can be run from the command line using the InstallationDeployer tool and include both install and remove switches. Here’s how to install and uninstall Sophos 9.x using the Sophos Enterprise Anti-Virus installer application:
Install:
/path/to/Sophos\ Installer.app/Contents/MacOS/tools/InstallationDeployer --install
Uninstall:
/Library/Application\ Support/Sophos/opm/Installer.app/Contents/MacOS/tools/InstallationDeployer --remove
With these commands, it’s possible to add the Sophos Installer application and the Sophos Installer Components directory to an installer package and run the needed commands with preinstall and postinstall scripts.
The other part of the puzzle is providing configuration and login credentials, to allow Sophos 9.2.x to communicate back with the Sophos Enterprise console following installation. After working on the problem in his own shop, Tim Kimpton figured out that both of the following files were needed:
/Library/Preferences/com.sophos.sau.plist
/Library/Sophos Anti-Virus/Sophos.keychain
Once I had this information and understood what was going on, here’s how I repackaged Sophos Enterprise Anti-Virus 9.2.x so that it could be deployed via an installer package.
Prerequisites:
A copy of the Sophos Installer application and the Sophos Installer Components directory from your Sophos Enterprise console server. The Sophos installer is available from the link below:
smb://your_sophos_enterprise_server_name_goes_here/SophosUpdate/CIDs/S000/ESCOSX/
A copy of the Sophos.keychain file, which will need to be taken from the following location on a Sophos Enterprise-managed machine: /Library/Sophos Anti-Virus/Sophos.keychain
A copy of the com.sophos.sau.plist file, which will need to be taken from the following location on a Sophos Enterprise-managed machine: /Library/Preferences/com.sophos.sau.plist
1. Set up a new Packages project and select Raw Package.
2. In this case, I’m naming the project Sophos Enterprise Anti-Virus 9.2.4
3. Once the Packages project opens, click on the Project tab. You’ll want to make sure that the your information is correctly set here (if you don’t know what to put in, check the Help menu for the Packages User Guide. The information you need is in Chapter 4 – Configuring a project.)
In this example, I’m not changing any of the options from what is set by default.
4. Next, click on the Settings tab. In the case of my project, I want to install with root privileges and not require a logout, restart or shutdown.
To accomplish this, I’m choosing the following options in the Settings section:
In the Post-Installation Behavior section, set On Success: to Do Nothing
In the Options section, check the box for Require admin password for installation.
5. Click on the Scripts tab in your Packages project.
6. Select the Sophos Installer application and the Sophos Installer Components directory and drag it into the Additional Resources section of your Packages project.
7. Select the Sophos.keychain file and drag it into the Additional Resources section of your Packages project.
8. The last piece is doing an automated uninstall of any existing Sophos installations, then installing a fresh copy of Sophos with the pre-configured autoupdate settings.
For this, you’ll need a preinstall script and postinstall script. Here are the ones I’m using:
Preinstall:
Postinstall:
9. Once you’ve got the preinstall and postinstall scripts built, run the following command to make the script executable:
sudo chmod a+x /path/to/preinstall
sudo chmod a+x /path/to/postinstall
10. Once completed, add the preinstall and postinstall scripts to your Packages project.
11. Last step, go ahead and build the package. (If you don’t know to build, check the Help menu for the Packages User Guide. The information you need is in Chapter 3 – Creating a raw package project and Chapter 10 – Building a project.)
Testing the installer
Once the package has been built, test it by taking it to a test machine that does not have Sophos and install it. The end result should be that Sophos Anti-Virus installs properly and has the pre-configured settings for your Sophos Enterprise server included automatically.
