Silent/Automated Installation Guide
This guide will show you how to perform a silent (non-interactive) installation of ProGet, BuildMaster, or Otter that won't display a user interface or prompt for input. This can be useful for automating your installation and upgrades.
Silent installations use the Inedo Hub's Command Line Interface (CLI), which means that the Inedo Hub must be downloaded and installed first. However, you can perform a silent/scripted installation of the Inedo Hub or even create an offline installation bundle that you can then distribute.
How to Perform a Silent Installation
Before installing an Inedo product silently, you will need to have access to a SQL Server instance. Although the interactive (non-silent) process can install SQL Server Express for you, it's not feasible for the Inedo Hub to do this silently.
Open Command Prompt and use the cd command to navigate to the Inedo Hub installation directory (default is C:\Program Files\Inedo Hub). For example:
cd C:\Program Files\Inedo Hub
For a basic installation of an Inedo product, you can simply use the install command with the product name and a connection string that points to your SQL Server.
| Product | Command |
|---|---|
| ProGet | hub.exe install ProGet --ConnectionString="Data Source=localhost; Integrated Security=True;" |
| BuildMaster | hub.exe install BuildMaster --ConnectionString="Data Source=localhost; Integrated Security=True;" |
| Otter | hub.exe install Otter --ConnectionString="Data Source=localhost; Integrated Security=True;" |
Note that you can’t use the install command without the ConnectionString argument, as the Inedo Hub would not know how and where to create and initialize the database schema.
Wait for the installer to finish. Once the installation is finished, you’ll get a message saying that your Inedo product is installed.
How to Upgrade Silently
To silently upgrade an existing Inedo product using the Inedo Hub, follow the same process as a regular install. If a new version is available, it will be downloaded and installed. Note that you only need to specify the ConnectionString if the product's stored connection string does not have permission to modify the database schema.
Performing a Silent Uninstall
If you need to uninstall an Inedo product for whatever reason, you can use the uninstall command. This requires no additional arguments.
| Product | Command |
|---|---|
| ProGet | hub.exe uninstall ProGet |
| BuildMaster | hub.exe uninstall BuildMaster |
| Otter | hub.exe uninstall Otter |
Once the uninstallation is finished, you will get a confirmation message.
Additional Silent Installation Options
It's possible to customize your Inedo product installation during the install stage by adding additional arguments to the command line when setting up.
Example: Specifying a License Key
For example, the following command will install ProGet with an existing license key so that you don't have to manually enter it later.
hub.exe install ProGet --ConnectionString="Data Source=localhost; Integrated Security=True;" LicenseKey=«your-license-key»
Example: Installing to a Specific Version
By default, the Silent Install method will always download and install the newest version of the specified Inedo product. If you need to install a specific version, you can add the desired version number to the install string.
For example, to install ProGet 5.2.3 using the upgrade process:
hub.exe install ProGet:5.2.3 --IsUpgrade=true
Using Other Installation Arguments
Other common customization options include the ability to use IIS (--UseIIS), and specifying a custom path for Inedo extensions (--ExtensionsPath=«custom-extensions-path»)
A full list of features that can be customized during a silent instalation is available on our Inedo Hub CLI guide.
Scripted Installation of Inedo Hub
The Inedo Hub may be installed manually by downloading the contents of the latest DesktopHub package as a zip file, and then extracting it to a target directory (such as c:\InedoHub).
Note that this process will not register the program as installed with Windows, nor will it add an icon to use the InedoHub in the start menu.
Example: PowerShell to Fully Script Installation
Following is an example script that will download the Inedo Hub, extract it to c:\InedoHub, and then run a silent installation of ProGet 5.2.3.
# create working directories
mkdir C:\InedoHub
cd C:\InedoHub
# download and extract file to working directory
Invoke-WebRequest "https://proget.inedo.com/upack/Products/download/InedoReleases/DesktopHub?contentOnly=zip&latest" -OutFile C:\InedoHub\InedoHub.zip
Expand-Archive -Path InedoHub.zip -DestinationPath C:\InedoHub
# perform silent installation
hub.exe install ProGet:5.2.3 --ConnectionString="Data Source=localhost; Integrated Security=True;"