Try to use .dmg installers on macOS before .tar.gz by IanButterworth · Pull Request #1320 · JuliaLang/juliaup

IanButterworth · 2025-11-03T03:05:16Z

Summary

Use DMG installers instead of tarballs on macOS when available. This avoids the need for notarizing the standard library since DMG-distributed .app bundles come with notarization tickets intact.

Also strips the com.apple.quarantine extended attribute after extraction (both DMG and tarball) to prevent Gatekeeper/XProtect scanning delays during installation.

Changes

DMG-first installation: On macOS, attempt to download .dmg files first, falling back to .tar.gz if unavailable
App bundle support: Handle .app bundle directory structure (Contents/Resources/julia/bin/julia) when resolving Julia binary paths via resolve_julia_binary_path
Quarantine stripping: Remove com.apple.quarantine xattr after extraction to avoid Gatekeeper scanning delays that were causing macOS CI to take 20-45 minutes
RAII DMG handling: DmgMountGuard ensures DMG volumes are always detached, even on error paths
Progress feedback: Show status during DMG mount/copy/unmount phases ("Mounting installer...", "Copying application...", etc.)
Graceful fallback: If DMG download or mount fails, automatically fall back to tarball extraction with existing notarization check
Pre-computed binary paths: Store resolved binary paths in config (BinaryPath field, skip_serializing_if = "Option::is_none" for backward compatibility), with runtime fallback for existing installations
PR build codesigning: Skip codesigning for DMG installs (already signed); gate on is_pr && !used_dmg in install_from_url
HTTP error handling: Add status code checks and user-friendly hints for download_juliaup_version and download_versiondb failures
New tests: symlink_uses_app_bundle_for_system_channel, symlink_uses_app_bundle_for_direct_download_channel, dmg_failure_falls_back_to_tarball

CI performance

macOS CI time reduced significantly due to using dmgs and quarantine stripping:

aarch64: 25m → 8m
x86_64: 45m → 8m

Example

% juliaup add release
  Installing Julia 1.12.1+0.aarch64.apple.darwin14
         Add Installed Julia channel 'release'
% julia +release -e "@time using Pkg"
  0.328271 seconds (517.75 k allocations: 34.026 MiB)

Technical notes

The current implementation uses runtime URL manipulation (.tar.gz → .dmg) as a workaround. TODO comments document the preferred approach: a v2 database schema with multiple ranked download sources per platform
install_from_url and install_non_db_version now return Result<(JuliaupConfigChannel, bool)> where the bool indicates whether a DMG was used, enabling callers to skip codesigning/notarization for DMG installs
The notarization check for tarball installations is preserved for Julia ≥1.11 when DMG is not available
Note: this does not affect setup-julia CI action — that downloads tarballs directly and handles notarization separately (context)

The version db file itself is versioned, so when we update the schema (which this would essentially be a case of) we would publish it as version db 2 file, so any old client would just stay on the old version file. Would actually be good to test such a version db schema change with a relatively simply case like this one.

I spent some time trying to figure out the database update approach and don't think I understand how to add the v2 database and keep updating the v1 database.

I think implementing that is a bit outside of my wheelhouse...

Do you think we could proceed with this approach for now, with a TODO to update the database version format appropriately?

I think my original thinking for DB versions was that we stop updating v1 database once we start to publish v2 databases. The general idea for Juliaup is that the binaries need to be kept up-to-date.

I would prefer that we try to do this with a DB update, I'm happy to help with that.

One thing I don't fully understand yet: do we need this stuff for only the PR type channels, or for everything?

Oh, and I can help with the DB update!

Thanks.

It's needed for all official releases. I'm not sure which of the nightlies or PRs have dmgs

@davidanthoff to try and help this move along I've given the database format changes a go. What do you think?

I think we need to keep moving forward here, so I'm going to implement the dmg switch via the workaround for now, and we can do the db format switch when you have time @davidanthoff

This implements DMG support for macOS installations using runtime URL conversion from .tar.gz to .dmg, with fallback to tarball if DMG is not available. Changes: - Add resolve_julia_binary_path() to handle .app bundle installations - Add download_extract_dmg() and try_download_dmg_with_fallback() for DMG handling - Convert .tar.gz URLs to .dmg on macOS at runtime (string replacement) - Only do notarization check for stdlib when using tarballs on macOS - Add TODOs for future database schema v2 that would include multiple ranked download sources (DMG, tarball) to eliminate runtime string manipulation See discussion at: #1320

IanButterworth · 2026-01-18T02:08:32Z

Note that this speeds up macOS CI to be in line with other platforms.

aarch - 19m -> 8m
x86 - 27m -> 8m

On macOS, attempt to download .dmg files first when installing Julia, falling back to .tar.gz if unavailable. DMG-distributed .app bundles come with notarization tickets intact, avoiding the need for the stdlib notarization check and local codesigning of PR builds. Key changes: - Add download_extract_dmg and try_download_dmg_with_fallback for DMG-first installation with automatic tarball fallback - Add resolve_julia_binary_path to handle .app bundle directory structure (Contents/Resources/julia/bin/julia) vs flat layout - Store pre-computed binary_path in config for efficient launch, with runtime fallback for backward compatibility - Skip codesigning for PR builds installed via DMG (already signed) - Use resolve_julia_binary_path in codesign_pr_build_if_needed so paths are correct for both .app bundles and tarball layouts - Add HTTP sta On macOS, attempt to download .dmg files first when installing Julia, falling back to .tar.gz if unavailable. DMG-distributed .app bundles come with notarization tauthored-by: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>

Necessary after JuliaLang/juliaup#1320

* CI: Fix macOS tests after JuliaLang/juliaup#1320 Necessary after JuliaLang/juliaup#1320 * Add some more debugging output

IanButterworth mentioned this pull request Nov 3, 2025

show an increasing count for notarizing stdlibs instead of just dots #1285

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davidanthoff reviewed Nov 4, 2025

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IanButterworth force-pushed the ib/dmg branch from 0eab19a to 9a3cd9d Compare November 25, 2025 01:33

IanButterworth force-pushed the ib/dmg branch from 9a3cd9d to f9ed23f Compare January 17, 2026 18:51

IanButterworth force-pushed the ib/dmg branch from f9ed23f to dfb6941 Compare January 17, 2026 18:51

IanButterworth force-pushed the ib/dmg branch from dfb6941 to da8b93b Compare January 17, 2026 19:29

IanButterworth changed the title ~~Try to use dmgs first on macos~~ Try to use .dmg installers on macOS before .tar.gz Jan 18, 2026

IanButterworth marked this pull request as ready for review January 18, 2026 02:02

IanButterworth force-pushed the ib/dmg branch 2 times, most recently from c1f3150 to 8338920 Compare February 7, 2026 05:05

IanButterworth force-pushed the ib/dmg branch from 8338920 to 9fe2e4b Compare February 7, 2026 18:12

macos: try speedup

ffb1fa7

IanButterworth merged commit a9b4dc5 into main Feb 8, 2026
45 of 54 checks passed

IanButterworth deleted the ib/dmg branch February 8, 2026 03:22

DilumAluthge added a commit to julia-actions/install-juliaup that referenced this pull request Feb 8, 2026

CI: Fix macOS tests after JuliaLang/juliaup#1320

e25627e

DilumAluthge mentioned this pull request Feb 8, 2026

CI: Fix macOS tests after JuliaLang/juliaup#1320 julia-actions/install-juliaup#140

Merged

DilumAluthge added a commit to julia-actions/install-juliaup that referenced this pull request Feb 8, 2026

CI: Fix macOS tests after JuliaLang/juliaup#1320

d70b13a

Necessary after JuliaLang/juliaup#1320

DilumAluthge mentioned this pull request Feb 8, 2026

Use dmg on Mac #1010

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Try to use .dmg installers on macOS before .tar.gz#1320

Try to use .dmg installers on macOS before .tar.gz#1320
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+              #[cfg(target_os = "macos")]
+              fn try_download_dmg_with_fallback(url: &url::Url, target_path: &Path) -> Result<(String, bool)> {
+                  let dmg_url = if url.as_str().ends_with(".tar.gz") {

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IanButterworth commented Jan 18, 2026

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IanButterworth commented Nov 3, 2025 •

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