IF YOU CANNOT DESIGN A WORKING UNINSTALL
STANZA, PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR CASK ANYWAY. The maintainers will help you write an uninstall
stanza, just ask!
pkgutil:
is the easiest and most useful uninstall
directive. See Uninstall Key pkgutil:.
For most Casks, uninstall actions are determined automatically, and an explicit uninstall
stanza is not needed. However, a Cask which uses the pkg
or installer manual:
stanzas will not know how to uninstall correctly unless an uninstall
stanza is given.
So, while the Cask language does not enforce the requirement, it is much better for end-users if every pkg
and installer manual:
has a corresponding uninstall
.
The uninstall
stanza is available for non-pkg
Casks, and is useful for a few corner cases. However, the documentation below concerns the typical case of using uninstall
to define procedures for a pkg
.
Since pkg
installers can do arbitrary things, different techniques are needed to uninstall in each case. You may need to specify one, or several, of the following key/value pairs as arguments to uninstall
.
early_script:
(string or hash) - likescript:
, but runs early (for special cases, best avoided)launchctl:
(string or array) - ids oflaunchctl
jobs to removequit:
(string or array) - bundle ids of running applications to quitsignal:
(array of arrays) - signal numbers and bundle ids of running applications to send a Unix signal to (used whenquit:
does not work)login_item:
(string or array) - names of login items to removekext:
(string or array) - bundle ids of kexts to unload from the systempkgutil:
(string, regexp or array of strings and regexps) - strings or regexps matching bundle ids of packages to uninstall usingpkgutil
script:
(string or hash) - relative path to an uninstall script to be run via sudo; use hash if args are neededexecutable:
- relative path to an uninstall script to be run via sudo (required for hash form)args:
- array of arguments to the uninstall scriptinput:
- array of lines of input to be sent tostdin
of the scriptmust_succeed:
- set tofalse
if the script is allowed to failsudo:
- set totrue
if the script needssudo
delete:
(string or array) - single-quoted, absolute paths of files or directory trees to remove.delete:
should only be used as a last resort.pkgutil:
is strongly preferred.rmdir:
(string or array) - single-quoted, absolute paths of directories to remove if emptytrash:
(string or array) - currently a synonym fordelete:
. In the future this will cause files to be moved to the Trash.
Each uninstall
technique is applied according to the order above. The order in which uninstall
keys appear in the Cask file is ignored.
For assistance filling in the right values for uninstall
keys, there are several helper scripts found under developer/bin
in the Homebrew-Cask repository. Each of these scripts responds to the -help
option with additional documentation.
The easiest way to work out an uninstall
stanza is on a system where the pkg
is currently installed and operational. To operate on an uninstalled pkg
file, see Working With a pkg File Manually, below.
This is the most useful uninstall key. pkgutil:
is often sufficient to completely uninstall a pkg
, and is strongly preferred over delete:
.
IDs for the most recently-installed packages can be listed using the command:
$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_recent_pkg_ids"
pkgutil:
also accepts a regular expression match against multiple package IDs. The regular expressions are somewhat nonstandard. To test a pkgutil:
regular expression against currently-installed packages, use the command:
$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_pkg_ids_by_regexp" <regular-expression>
Once you know the ID for an installed package, (above), you can list all files on your system associated with that package ID using the macOS command:
$ pkgutil --files <package.id.goes.here>
Listing the associated files can help you assess whether the package included any launchctl
jobs or kernel extensions (kexts).
IDs for currently loaded launchctl
jobs can be listed using the command:
$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_loaded_launchjob_ids"
IDs for all installed launchctl
jobs can be listed using the command:
$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_installed_launchjob_ids"
Bundle IDs for currently running Applications can be listed using the command:
$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_running_app_ids"
Bundle IDs inside an Application bundle on disk can be listed using the command:
$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_ids_in_app" '/path/to/application.app'
signal:
should only be needed in the rare case that a process does not respond to quit:
.
Bundle IDs for signal:
targets may be obtained as for quit:
. The value for signal:
is an array-of-arrays, with each cell containing two elements: the desired Unix signal followed by the corresponding bundle ID.
The Unix signal may be given in numeric or string form (see the kill
man page for more details).
The elements of the signal:
array are applied in order, only if there is an existing process associated the bundle ID, and stopping when that process terminates. A bundle ID may be repeated to send more than one signal to the same process.
It is better to use the least-severe signals which are sufficient to stop a process. The KILL
signal in particular can have unwanted side-effects.
An example, with commonly-used signals in ascending order of severity:
uninstall signal: [
['TERM', 'fr.madrau.switchresx.daemon'],
['QUIT', 'fr.madrau.switchresx.daemon'],
['INT', 'fr.madrau.switchresx.daemon'],
['HUP', 'fr.madrau.switchresx.daemon'],
['KILL', 'fr.madrau.switchresx.daemon'],
]
Note that when multiple running processes match the given Bundle ID, all matching processes will be signaled.
Unlike quit:
directives, Unix signals originate from the current user, not from the superuser. This is construed as a safety feature, since the superuser is capable of bringing down the system via signals. However, this inconsistency may also be considered a bug, and should be addressed in some fashion in a future version.
Login items associated with an Application bundle on disk can be listed using the command:
$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_login_items_for_app" '/path/to/application.app'
Note that you will likely need to have opened the app at least once for any login items to be present.
IDs for currently loaded kernel extensions can be listed using the command:
$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_loaded_kext_ids"
IDs inside a kext bundle you have located on disk can be listed using the command:
$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_id_in_kext" '/path/to/name.kext'
uninstall script:
introduces a series of key-value pairs describing a command which will automate completion of the uninstall. Example (from gpgtools.rb):
uninstall script: {
executable: "#{staged_path}/Uninstall.app/Contents/Resources/GPG Suite Uninstaller.app/Contents/Resources/uninstall.sh",
sudo: true,
}
It is important to note that, although script:
in the above example does attempt to completely uninstall the pkg
, it should not be used in detriment of pkgutil:
, but as a complement when possible.
delete:
should only be used as a last resort, if other uninstall
methods are insufficient.
Arguments to uninstall delete:
should use the following basic rules:
- Only single quotes should be used, except when invoking
#{version}
interpolation.ENV['HOME']
and other variables should not be interpolated in the value. - Basic tilde expansion is performed on paths, i.e., leading
~
is expanded to the home directory. - Paths must be absolute.
- Glob expansion is performed using the standard set of characters.
To remove user-specific files, use the zap
stanza.
stub - currently a synonym for delete:
. In the future this will cause files to be moved to the Trash. It is best not to use this stub until it gains the proper functionality.
Advanced users may wish to work with a pkg
file manually, without having the package installed.
A list of files which may be installed from a pkg
can be extracted using the command:
$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_payload_in_pkg" '/path/to/my.pkg'
Candidate application names helpful for determining the name of a Cask may be extracted from a pkg
file using the command:
$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_apps_in_pkg" '/path/to/my.pkg'
Candidate package IDs which may be useful in a pkgutil:
key may be extracted from a pkg
file using the command:
$ "$(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/developer/bin/list_ids_in_pkg" '/path/to/my.pkg'
A fully manual method for finding bundle ids in a package file follows:
- Unpack
/path/to/my.pkg
(replace with your package name) withpkgutil --expand /path/to/my.pkg /tmp/expanded.unpkg
. - The unpacked package is a folder. Bundle ids are contained within files named
PackageInfo
. These files can be found with the commandfind /tmp/expanded.unpkg -name PackageInfo
. PackageInfo
files are XML files, and bundle ids are found within theidentifier
attributes of<pkg-info>
tags that look like<pkg-info ... identifier="com.oracle.jdk7u51" ... >
, where extraneous attributes have been snipped out and replaced with ellipses.- Kexts inside packages are also described in
PackageInfo
files. If any kernel extensions are present, the commandfind /tmp/expanded.unpkg -name PackageInfo -print0 | xargs -0 grep -i kext
should return a<bundle id>
tag with apath
attribute that contains a.kext
extension, for example<bundle id="com.wavtap.driver.WavTap" ... path="./WavTap.kext" ... />
. - Once bundle ids have been identified, the unpacked package directory can be deleted.