Applications distributing GZIP files decompress them.

  • 3031946
  • 05-May-2007
  • 30-Apr-2012

Environment

Novell ZENworks 6.5 Desktop Management Support Pack 2 - ZDM6.5 SP2 Application Launcher (NAL)
Novell ZENworks 7 Desktop Management - ZDM7 Application Launcher (NAL)
Novell ZENworks for Desktops 4 - ZFD4

Situation

Applications distributing GZIP files decompress them.
If an application is distributing .gz files to a Windows based workstation. It will extract them.

Resolution

The state of the original file is now preserved: if a gzip file is distributed, it is zipped again, then unzipped once, so to speak, to leave an unzipped file.

For ZDM 7: Fixed in ZENworks 7 with SP1 Desktop Management, "Novell ZENworks 7 SP1 Suite Release 4" available https://download.novell.com/patch/finder/

For ZDM 6.5 SP2: fixed in ZENworks 6.5 Desktop Management SP2 IR1 or newer found

Additional Information

After researching this, Nal uses compression to save files in the c:\nalcache. Thus when files are copied, the copy routines that look for the compression headers are called, and if the file is compressed it is uncompressed. Thus if a file is compressed there is a side effect of files not working when the files to be distributed are .gz zipped.

Now for a simple work around. Nal uses the compression function to save files in the c:\nalcache directory. So, take the application that contains the .gz zip files and force nal to save them to the c:\nalcache directory. Nal will compress them (a second time, which just adds a 2nd compression header to the already .gz compressed file) and save them to the nalcache directory. Then when Nal does an install/verify it uses the source files from the c:\nalcache directory and uncompresses them once leaving them in a single compresed .gz zip format.

To force nal to save the files to the local cache, In ConsoleOne when the application is associated, check the force cache option.

Formerly known as TID# 10087864 NOVL93217

Change Log

22-Feb-2010  tgordon  Updated patch url to point to download.novell.com/patch/finder