How to unpack and pack pkg file?

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Packages are just .xar archives with a different extension and a specified file hierarchy. Unfortunately, part of that file hierarchy is a cpio.gz archive of the actual installables, and usually that’s what you want to edit. And there’s also a Bom file that includes information on the files inside that cpio archive, and a PackageInfo file that includes summary information.

If you really do just need to edit one of the info files, that’s simple:

mkdir Foo
cd Foo
xar -xf ../Foo.pkg
# edit stuff
xar -cf ../Foo-new.pkg *

But if you need to edit the installable files:

mkdir Foo
cd Foo
xar -xf ../Foo.pkg
cd foo.pkg
cat Payload | gunzip -dc |cpio -i
# edit Foo.app/*
rm Payload
find ./Foo.app | cpio -o | gzip -c > Payload
mkbom Foo.app Bom # or edit Bom
# edit PackageInfo
rm -rf Foo.app
cd ..
xar -cf ../Foo-new.pkg

I believe you can get mkbom (and lsbom) for most linux distros. (If you can get ditto, that makes things even easier, but I’m not sure if that’s nearly as ubiquitously available.)

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