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Universal Tool Updater

This tool is designed to help with the tedious process of keeping the tools that we use to work daily up to date.

This is the inevitable complement to the toolkit of the site.

Installation

You can clone the repo with git or just download it from download.

git clone https://github.com/xchwarze/universal-tool-updater

Setting

To add tools you have to edit the file tools.ini.

By default, it is configured as an example so that the user quickly understands how the tool is used.

[DIE]
folder = Analysis\DIE
url = horsicq/DIE-engine
from = github
re_download = die_win64_portable_(?:\S+).zip

[Portmon]
folder = Monitor\Portmon
url = https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MicrosoftDocs/sysinternals/main/sysinternals/downloads/portmon.md
update_url = https://download.sysinternals.com/files/PortMon.zip
from = web
re_version = # Portmon v(\d+\.\d+)

The values used for configuration are:

Name	Mandatory	Description
folder	YES	Folder where the tool will be saved. If it does not exist, it will be created.
url	YES	Web that will be used to perform the checks with the regex.
from	NO	Indicates the strategy used for the update. Currently supported values are: web, github or http.
local_version	NO	Currently downloaded version. This value will be updated with each update.
re_version	NO	Regex used to check for new versions on the web used in url.
re_download	NO	Regex used to get the download link on the web used in url.
update_url	NO	Update download URL. See "Strategy for download" for more info.
update_file_pass	NO	Use this password to unzip the update.
merge	NO	Merge new version with local.
pre_update	NO	The entered script will be executed before the update process.
post_update	NO	The entered script will be executed after the update process.
post_unpack	NO	The entered script will be executed after unpack the update file.

Strategy for download

Combining the use of update_url and re_download the following download strategies are achieved:

1. Using only update_url it downloads directly without any extra processing.
2. Using only re_download you get the download link on the web from url.
3. When using both parameters, the result of re_download is concatenated with update_url. This is useful for fixing GitHub or Sourceforge download links.
4. A new version detection method is also available that instead of regex uses the http headers with which the server responds.

Command-line Parameters

The updater provides a flexible set of parameters to control its behavior:

Parameter	Description
-h, --help	Show this help message and exit.
-v, --version	Display the program's version number and exit.
-u [UPDATE ...], --update [UPDATE ...]	Specify a list of tools to update. Defaults to updating all tools if not provided.
-dsu, --disable-self-update	Disable automatic self-update of this script.
-dfc, --disable-folder-clean	Skip cleaning the tool's folder during updates.
-dr, --disable-repack	Prevent repacking of tools after the update process.
-dic, --disable-install-check	Skip checking if the tools are properly installed.
-dpb, --disable-progress-bar	Disable the download progress bar for updates.
-sft {full,version,name}, --save-format-type {full,version,name}	Specify the save format type for compressed updates: full, version, or name.
-f, --force	Force the download of updates, even if they appear up to date.
-uga USE_GITHUB_API, --use-github-api USE_GITHUB_API	Use the GitHub API for updates, specifying the token to authenticate.
-udp, --update-default-params	Update the default parameters stored in the configuration.
-dmc, --disable-mutex-check	Allow multiple instances of the script to run simultaneously by disabling the mutex check.
-d, --debug	Enable detailed debug output for troubleshooting.

Examples

The tool supports various commands and combinations. These are the most used.

• Update a particular tool

updater.exe --update "Process Hacker 3"

• Force Update of a tool

updater.exe --force --update DIE

• Update without compressing or cleaning the folder

updater.exe --disable-folder-clean --disable-repack

Use with GitHub Api

GitHub download are performed by default scraping data, but for a more robust operation it is recommended to do it using the GitHub api. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Generate our token from https://github.com/settings/tokens by clicking on Generate new token.
2. Run the updater with the following commands

updater.exe --update-default-params --use-github-api your_github_token

Use with scheduled tasks

• Add updater tool to scheduled task. You can read more here "Create scheduled tasks with CLI", "How to create an automated task" and "Prevent command window appearing"

# execute in elevated command prompt
SCHTASKS /CREATE /SC DAILY /TN "ToolkitUpdater" /TR "D:\code\toolkit\Updater\custom-task.bat" /ST 14:00

• Delete scheduled task

# execute in elevated command prompt
SCHTASKS /DELETE /TN "ToolkitUpdater"

Compile to exe

pip install pyinstaller
pyinstaller --onefile UpdateManager.py --icon=../assets/appicon.ico