ni-certificates missing...

[Oli_Wachno]

Hi there,

I just stumbled over the following when using my own feed for NI Software installation (from a PS script)

my IT guy tried to execute the script line by line and during installation, a Windows Security Message popped up.

The KB gives information about adding the certificates to installers, but not to Repos (which is what I am using)
I tried to add ni-certificates package to my package / repo but didn't find a way to do so

.... even stranger.... I can't find the ni-certificates package downloadable from the NI Software Download page.

I found it on my PC in some NI Package Manager subfolder though...

Is there an elegant way to include the certificates into my Repo? Or maybe also a seperated one, if that makes it easier?

Maybe anyone has already solved this

Cheers

Oli

[Oli_Wachno]

Maybe make it little clearer....

I need

• a way to either install the ni-certificates up-front or 
• include ni-certificates into a custom package 

[d_wozny]

Hi,

I would try:

On system that you have certificates (some minimal LabView installation):

* first command will get you the feed

* the second command will get you available packages and their full versions

nipkg list-source-feeds ni-certificates 
nipkg list-providers ni-certificates

Then on destination system:

nipkg feed-add {feed from previous step}
nipkg update
nipkg install ni-certificates={full version from previous step} --accept-eulas -y -v

[Oli_Wachno]

Hi Dawid,

thanks for pointing out these commands! 

Do they work on your machine? I have just tried to set up a pristine VM with NIPM, installed the ni-certificates package I have found on my computer adn it does show up in the NIMP GUI

It does also show up on the command line when using

nipkg.exe list-installed ni-certificates

Yet 

nipkg.exe list-source-feeds ni-certificates

returns Error -125103  (no compatible version or architecture in registered feeds)

[d_wozny]

Hi,

I did not have a need to just install ni-certificates. I remember couple years a go this was the error (no certificates installed) I was getting when tried to install labview just from it's feed. Are you trying the same? If you give me some context i might be able to help.

So my understanding is that: 

When you run 

nipkg.exe list-source-feeds ni-certificates

 - on your machine then you get a feed

- on vanilla vm with npikg you get error

Is that correct? This is quite strange maybe nipkg update or restart of the shell could help with it but the question is why you are testing that. If I had package installed I would be allready happy and would not test it whether it got source feeds associated. 

I guess this is just debugging step but what is the root cause? I mean, is the original issue persisting despite installing certificates?

[Oli_Wachno]

OK, let's start with my use case.... we're still introducing a company-wide NI Tools installation using NIPM from central repos.

The first packages we're rolling out is the NIPM installer.

The second one would be runtimes and drivers. Those repos are built from a reference machine using NI Package Builder. Used to be working so far, but we tested not on completely pristine systems, they used to have some NI installations before, so ssemingly, the NI certificates had been installed to the Windows certificate store previously.

So my idea was to just add the ni-certificates package to our package (and the repo). Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to do so using NI Package Builder.

On my machine (which is also used for building the packages / repos), ni-certificates are installed. Running 

nipkg.exe list-source-feeds ni-certificates

gives me the following output

I don't see ni.-certificates metioned here.....

On the Vanilla VM (NIPM installed + certificates installed manually form an nipkg I found somewhere on my disk) nothing is returned using this command.

Although ni-certificates show up as installed in the NIPM GUI....

My suspicion is, that ni-certificates is some kind of special package not behaving as others do ... similar to NIPM istelf....

Addition:

Guess it really is.... I started digging a bit deeper... this is what the package cntains

[d_wozny]

Hi, 

I will reply later on this topic but my primary question is that: did manual installation of certificates fixed the issue. Ie. can you install software now?

[Oli_Wachno]

Yes! Having the certificates in place, those Windows Security PopUp don't show up

[d_wozny · Accepted solution]

Hi,

ni-certificates is special in the sense that does nothing but allowing ni software to be installed but is an ordinary package. What i mean by ordinary is that when you install it manually (from disk) it will not add feeds to redo this operation. This is something what installation of ni package manager does. When you install ni package manager it will install couple packages including ni-package-manager-release-feeds that will install feed for further updates of ni-package-manager.

So I am not surprised that you don't see feed on the machine where they were installed manually.

There are plenty of feeds from the screen on your machine. I have checked the most interesting one that is: ni-package-manager-relased. This is one added during ni package manager installation and it does contain ni-certificates.

What that means is that apart of installing ni package manager you don't need extra feeds. All you need to do is update (command to update packages cache from feeds) and then install.

I have tested that (installation) and it finishes successfully.

The command like this:

Gives me this output on clean system (docker)

[Oli_Wachno]

Hi Dawid,

thanks for your investigations! This lead me to the solution!

1.) Turns out, uninstalling does not remove C:\Users\my.user\AppData\Local\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\nipkg.ini

2.) Since we want to have a complete offline installation, we have set enable-NI-connectivity=false within nipkg.ini. That's why after a fresh install of NIPM, the ni-certificates didn't show up.

For me, this means: I will manually download ni-certificates package from the NI Package Manager Repo and have a seperate installation, which runs after NI Package Manager.