Re: Require suggestions on feature #5766

Hi Dave,

I have mentioned the requirements for the deployment server to add
auto-update in macOs systems.

The frontend will request deployment server with Accept: application/json
and the current version of pgAdmin and the architecture of macOs system and
server will check if any update is available or not, if update available
then server responds with status code 200 OK and sends the below format
JSON response in the body.

Example of deployment url:
https://your-deployment-url.com/update/darwin/8.12

Example of response:

{
"url": "https://your-deployment-url.com/your-app-8.13-darwin.zip",
"name": "8.13",
"notes": "Theses are some release notes innit",
"pub_date": "2024-09-18T12:29:53+01:00"
}

Here url is mandatory and others are optional.

Squirrel will request "url" with Accept: application/zip and only supports
installing ZIP updates.

"pub_date" if present must be formatted according to ISO 8601.

If no update is required, the server must respond with a status code of 204
No Content.

And for Windows systems, Electron recommended to use electron-winstaller or
electron forge as using these packages will use Squirrel.Windows for
creating windows installer and that will help in triggering custom launch
events and that can be handled by our application for proper setup. But
what I think is, as we are using Inno setup for creating our Windows
installer, we can try updating our application with existing way only, if
something does not work then we have the option to change our installer
creation process.

Thanks,

Anil

On Wed, Nov 27, 2024 at 10:34 PM Dave Page <dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)org> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> On Wed, 27 Nov 2024 at 07:58, Anil Sahoo <anil(dot)sahoo(at)enterprisedb(dot)com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Dave/Team,
>>
>> I am currently working on the auto-update feature of pgAdmin 4 desktop
>> application, #5766 <https://github.com/pgadmin-org/pgadmin4/issues/5766>.
>>
>>
>> As we are using Electron for shipping our desktop application, I have
>> gone through some possible ways we can implement the auto update of the
>> app.
>>
>> I found 2 most popular ways, that are
>>
>> 1. *Use builtin electron’s autoUpdater* (Uses the Squirrel framework
>> & Available for Mac, Windows)
>> 2. *Use electron-builder and electron-updater packages *(Available
>> for Mac, Windows and Linux systems)
>>
>> *Linux systems:*
>>
>>
>> - Builtin Electron’s autoUpdater support is not available.
>> - electron-builder and electron-updater can be used, but need to
>> change the whole build process. Also most apps like VS code, Chrome, etc
>> does not support auto-update of apps on linux systems.
>>
>> We should not try to auto-update on Linux, because we're using the
> platform native packaging and auto-updating will cause nasty problems with
> that.
>
>
>> *Mac systems:*
>>
>> - We can use the builtin Electron’s autoUpdater to add auto-update
>> feature to macOs systems, It is simple and easy to configure. We need a
>> minor modification in our build process i.e. as we are supporting Intel and
>> Apple silicon chips, deployment url will have 2 zip files and each zip file
>> will hold the build for arm64 and x86_64.
>> - electron-builder and electron-updater can be used. With this, we
>> have to change the whole build process.
>>
>> *Windows systems:*
>>
>> - We can use the builtin Electron’s autoUpdater to add auto-update
>> feature to windows systems, Here also we need to change our build process.
>> Electron’s docs recommend using electron-winstaller or electron forge to
>> create the installer and some extra changes are needed in the deployment
>> server.
>> - electron-builder and electron-updater can be used. With this, we
>> have to change the whole build process.
>>
>> As Electron's builtin autoUpdater is easy to use so for now we can move
>> with the auto-update of the pgAdmin app on macOs systems as it requires
>> minimal changes.
>>
>
> That certainly sounds like the better option. A couple of questions:
>
> - What changes are required in the deployment server? We are very limited
> here, as we deploy through the postgresql.org infrastructure.
>
> - Whilst the docs (for Windows) recommend using electron-winstaller or
> electron forge, can you confirm one of them *must* be used? Our current
> installer is pretty standard in the way it works, so I'm curious to know if
> we would actually need to change technology for a specific reason.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Dave Page
> pgAdmin: https://www.pgadmin.org
> PostgreSQL: https://www.postgresql.org
> pgEdge: https://www.pgedge.com
>
>

--

*Anil Sahoo*

Software Development Engineer II

LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/anilksahoo9/> || Blog
<https://www.enterprisedb.com/anil-sahoo> || *GitHub
<https://github.com/anilsahoo20>*

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