The Comprehensive Kerbal Archive Network (CKAN) Package Manager; v1.18.0 [19 June 2016]

[jrandom]

Just a quick head's up -- The Ferri version of FAR doesn't seem to be packaged correctly, as it errors out on @thumbs/ . Previous versions seemed to work okay.

[zengei]

{
    "spec_version" : 1,
    "identifier"   : "Mk2Expansion",
    "$kref"        : "#/ckan/kerbalstuff/790",
    "name": "Mk2 Expansion pack",
    "author": "SuicidalInsanity",
    "abstract": "New mk2 spaceplane parts in the form of engines, fuselage segments and aerodynamic accessories.",
    "download": "https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/790/Mk2%20Stock-a-like%20Expansion",
    "license"      : "CC-BY-4.0",
    "x_generated_by": "netkan",

    "depends": [
        { "name": "KineTechAnimation" },
        { "name": "KlockheedMartian-Gimbal" },
        { "name": "ModuleManager","min_version": "2.5.1"},
    ],
    "suggests": [
    { "name": "InterstellarFuelSwitch" },
    ],
    "install": [
    {"file": "GameData/Mk2Expansion","install_to": "GameData"},
    {"file": "Ships","install_to": "Ships","optional": true,"description": "Mk2X example crafts"},
    {"file": "Extras/GameData/Mk2Expansion","install_to": "GameData","optional": true,"description": "Mk2X Fuel tank switching, need InterstellarFuelSwitch"}
    ],

}

This looks more like a .ckan file than a .netkan, a .netkan is a skeleton that is consumed by NetKAN to generate a .ckan. Few things:

1. name, author, abstract, download will all be filled in by NetKAN.
   
2. x_generated_by is only used by NetKAN itself when it actually generates a .ckan.
   
3. The KineTechAnimation dependency is still listed as being only compatible with KSP 0.90 in CKAN, is it actually compatible with 1.0? Unless that's updated, CKAN won't list your mod to 1.0.x clients anyway.
   
4. A few trailing commas in the arrays, the bots will barf at that.
   
5. File paths have to be against the root of the archive which contains a Mk2Expansion-1.1.2 directory. Since that will presumably change with each release, we can use a find clause instead (which requires bumping the spec_version to v1.4).
   
6. optional and description aren't valid clauses in an install stanza according to the spec. Optional parts of a mod are implemented using another identifier.
   

Updated examples:

{
    "spec_version": "v1.4",
    "identifier": "Mk2Expansion",
    "$kref": "#/ckan/kerbalstuff/790",
    "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
    "depends": [
        { "name": "KineTechAnimation" },
        { "name": "KlockheedMartian-Gimbal" },
        { "name": "ModuleManager", "min_version": "2.5.1" }
    ],
    "suggests": [
        { "name": "InterstellarFuelSwitch" }
    ],
    "install": [
        { "find": "Mk2Expansion", "install_to": "GameData" }
    ]
}

{
    "spec_version": "v1.4",
    "identifier": "Mk2Expansion-Ships",
    "$kref": "#/ckan/kerbalstuff/790",
    "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
    "depends": [
        { "name": "Mk2Expansion" }
    ],
    "install": [
        { "find": "Ships", "install_to": "Ships" }
    ]
}

{
    "spec_version": "v1.4",
    "identifier": "Mk2Expansion-TankSwitch",
    "$kref": "#/ckan/kerbalstuff/790",
    "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
    "depends": [
        { "name": "Mk2Expansion" },
        { "name": "InterstellarFuelSwitch" }
    ],
    "install": [
        { "find": "Patches", "install_to": "GameData/Mk2Expansion/Patches" }
    ]
}

NOTE: I haven't actually tested that these install correctly, but they give you an idea.

[plague006]

Just a quick head's up -- The Ferri version of FAR doesn't seem to be packaged correctly, as it errors out on @thumbs/ . Previous versions seemed to work okay.

I didn't personally have an issue installing it. Can you send the output from CKAN so that we can better see what's going on?

Edited May 22, 2015 by plague006

[Andy81le]

For offline users: would it be possible to add the feature that mods that are in the cache but not installed are being updated as well during refresh? This would make it easier for a later install when one's not online.

[orven]

Is there any reset button somewhere that cleans all the ckan registry records? I have strange issue with refresh button and don't know how to fix it. I tried to clean the registry manually but maybe I missed something (and I really hope not to broke my PC).

[SuicidalInsanity]

netkan help

So that's what I was doing wrong. Got it working now, many thanks!

[plague006]

Is there any reset button somewhere that cleans all the ckan registry records? I have strange issue with refresh button and don't know how to fix it. I tried to clean the registry manually but maybe I missed something (and I really hope not to broke my PC).

When you say registry, do you mean the Windows registry (ie. the one you see with regedit) or do you mean registry.json in your CKAN folder? If it's only registry.json, you haven't broken your computer. =)

Can you explain further about what's happening with your refresh button?

If you just need help *now* and everything seems like it's on fire and you to be able to play, then here's the nuclear option: copy the installed-default.ckan file in the CKAN folder to somewhere safe. Delete the CKAN folder, the GameData folder, and the Ships folder. Re-download the files that come with the base game (ex. verify local files on steam), then open CKAN and follow the instructions here to re-install all the mods you previously had (from the installed-default.ckan file you copied earlier). Note: some of the mods will lose their configurations, so you'll have to customize them back to the way you like them.

Also if you want to describe how you ended up manually editing the registry, let me know and maybe I can give you a safer way to get the changes you want.

[orven]

When you say registry, do you mean the Windows registry (ie. the one you see with regedit) or do you mean registry.json in your CKAN folder? If it's only registry.json, you haven't broken your computer. =)

Can you explain further about what's happening with your refresh button?

If you just need help *now* and everything seems like it's on fire and you to be able to play, then here's the nuclear option: copy the installed-default.ckan file in the CKAN folder to somewhere safe. Delete the CKAN folder, the GameData folder, and the Ships folder. Re-download the files that come with the base game (ex. verify local files on steam), then open CKAN and follow the instructions here to re-install all the mods you previously had (from the installed-default.ckan file you copied earlier). Note: some of the mods will lose their configurations, so you'll have to customize them back to the way you like them.

Also if you want to describe how you ended up manually editing the registry, let me know and maybe I can give you a safer way to get the changes you want.

I mean windows registry. It was just a panic because I haven't noticed the ckan folder in my ksp install and the only way of storing configuration that came out to my head is windows registry. But then deleting scan folder helped.

What happened: I had several mods and then wanted to try ckan. I downloaded, refreshed repository, scrolled through all the list checking the most interesting mods, then went to the next tab and installed. I had a few errors with "already installed mods", so I deleted them and repeated again. Then I thought like "oh, looks like auto-detected mods won't be available for updating or deleting with ckan", so I've made a copy of my gamedata, deleted everything except squad, clicked refresh button in scan and here we go: unhandled exception thar broke everything. There is only one tab, no way of installing or deleting mods and clicking refresh button always lead to unhandled exception.

I know that my "delete everything" action was stupid, but it's my only quick way to start from scratch. Unfortunately I haven't copied the error text and function calls from the exception window, so I cannot make an actual report. What I've learned: deleting ckan folder in ksp install helps with this issue.

[Dreaming]

So, the good news is that `sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev` should *hopefully* get the test build to work happily under Linux. The bothersome news is that may install an extra 50Mb worth of packages.

Thankyou! I've just spent all morning (about 3 hours) trying to get CKAN working under Ubuntu 15.04 and this cracked it.

[Squeaky]

I've been discussing in another Thread about creating mod compilations or lists or something like that.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/122425-Mod-collections-depending-on-system-requirements-and-gameplay <-- Thread.

Having mods seperated or grouped to suit individual gameplay, ie realism, career orientated, future, station or bases VFX, essentials etc. Similar to the groups on the add on releases thread. Think it would be awesome if CKAN integrated it. Maybe as an additional tab.

Also a possible additional field with a rough idea of memory usage for each mod, something as simple as High, Med or low and if i was being greedy an integrated launch with opengl.

Would be more than happy to help gathering the information, just lack the brain cells to create it. Thanks

[Dazpoet]

I've been discussing in another Thread about creating mod compilations or lists or something like that.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/122425-Mod-collections-depending-on-system-requirements-and-gameplay <-- Thread.

Having mods seperated or grouped to suit individual gameplay, ie realism, career orientated, future, station or bases VFX, essentials etc. Similar to the groups on the add on releases thread. Think it would be awesome if CKAN integrated it. Maybe as an additional tab.

Also a possible additional field with a rough idea of memory usage for each mod, something as simple as High, Med or low and if i was being greedy an integrated launch with opengl.

Would be more than happy to help gathering the information, just lack the brain cells to create it. Thanks

I could have sworn that CKAN used to have '--force-opengl' as its standard start-up command but at least my install doesn't seem to have it anymore, could be due to me tinkering with it though.

The addition of a memory usage field have been discussed briefly and aborted due to complexity at https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/issues/922

As for categories there is a small issue opened about it here https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN-GUI/issues/93 which I recommend adding to as to get the discussion going if this is something many users want

If you are into coding and feel like creating your own new tab with something in it I recommend looking into https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/wiki/Guide-to-developing-CKAN-GUI-plugins and/or sending a PR which the devs can take a look at

[plague006]

I've been discussing in another Thread about creating mod compilations or lists or something like that.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/122425-Mod-collections-depending-on-system-requirements-and-gameplay <-- Thread.

Having mods seperated or grouped to suit individual gameplay, ie realism, career orientated, future, station or bases VFX, essentials etc. Similar to the groups on the add on releases thread. Think it would be awesome if CKAN integrated it. Maybe as an additional tab.

Also a possible additional field with a rough idea of memory usage for each mod, something as simple as High, Med or low and if i was being greedy an integrated launch with opengl.

Would be more than happy to help gathering the information, just lack the brain cells to create it. Thanks

CKAN is halfway there. Currently there's no way to host or public modpacks with CKAN, but CKAN *does* have modpack functionality as an alternative to hosting .zip files with all the mods packed in (as you proposed in your thread). See: https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/wiki/Sharing-a-modlist-%28metapackages%29

[Shaggygoblin]

Latest CKAN

KSP .90

Bargain Rocket Parts has a dead DL link.

RoverDude has the most recent on his USI Dropbox

Cheers!

[tkw]

the cargo bay won't open i download on ckan

[Streetwind]

Hey all, I have some questions and I hope you can help me.

I'm trying to make some "sort of official" configs for Nertea's mods. We occasionally get bug reports that turn out to be incomplete installs caused by CKAN, beause some of these packs are a bit complicated to install and whoever originally added the mods there didn't do it properly and/or didn't update to the latest KSP version. I'd like to remedy that, at least for the time being But I'm a first-time user of CKAN and there are some things I don't understand right away.

Thing is, looking at which of Nertea's mods are even listed on CKAN right now, I notice that Near Future Props is listed as a separate mod that can be installed. This confuses me a bit, because Nertea doesn't distribute that as a separate mod AFAIK. It's a subfolder that's distributed along with Near Future Spacecraft and Stockalike Station Parts Expansion, included in the downloadable zip file. How can it be that it shows up separate in CKAN? Is that some sort of JSON magic - if yes, I'd like to learn it If no, does that mean somebody is rehosting this somewhere? If so, can I find out who and where?

Another thing: at least one of Nertea's mods ships a folder with multiple optional extras, mostly MM configs that drastically change how some parts work. The user is supposed to decide for themselves which of those extras they want to install. I understand I can tell CKAN to install individual folders in a very fine-grained manner, but... how do I let the user choose what they want? If I just go ahead and don't ship the Extras folder, we'll get more complaints about missing features. If I just install the whole folder, people are going to get completely different stats than advertised for a lot of parts.

[Nazari1382]

the cargo bay won't open i download on ckan

Download the newest copy of Firespitter from ckan. Verify that you have the firespitter plugin in your gamedata folder.

[kcs123]

Hey all, I have some questions and I hope you can help me.

I'm trying to make some "sort of official" configs for Nertea's mods. We occasionally get bug reports that turn out to be incomplete installs caused by CKAN, beause some of these packs are a bit complicated to install and whoever originally added the mods there didn't do it properly and/or didn't update to the latest KSP version. I'd like to remedy that, at least for the time being But I'm a first-time user of CKAN and there are some things I don't understand right away.

Thing is, looking at which of Nertea's mods are even listed on CKAN right now, I notice that Near Future Props is listed as a separate mod that can be installed. This confuses me a bit, because Nertea doesn't distribute that as a separate mod AFAIK. It's a subfolder that's distributed along with Near Future Spacecraft and Stockalike Station Parts Expansion, included in the downloadable zip file. How can it be that it shows up separate in CKAN? Is that some sort of JSON magic - if yes, I'd like to learn it If no, does that mean somebody is rehosting this somewhere? If so, can I find out who and where?

Another thing: at least one of Nertea's mods ships a folder with multiple optional extras, mostly MM configs that drastically change how some parts work. The user is supposed to decide for themselves which of those extras they want to install. I understand I can tell CKAN to install individual folders in a very fine-grained manner, but... how do I let the user choose what they want? If I just go ahead and don't ship the Extras folder, we'll get more complaints about missing features. If I just install the whole folder, people are going to get completely different stats than advertised for a lot of parts.

To satisfy user demands and also be CKAN install friendly to some degree, is it possible to compress extra features in zip file ?

I mean, zip file inside of zip file. CKAN will decompress only necessary files in gamedata folder, leaving optional files in zip.

You can provide some extra info somewhere to inform user what kind of optional files he need to unzip.

Just idea, that poped up on top of my head when I read your post. Someone from CKAN staff members need to provide better answer how to handle other dependencies for mod.

[tkw]

To satisfy user demands and also be CKAN install friendly to some degree, is it possible to compress extra features in zip file ?

I mean, zip file inside of zip file. CKAN will decompress only necessary files in gamedata folder, leaving optional files in zip.

You can provide some extra info somewhere to inform user what kind of optional files he need to unzip.

Just idea, that poped up on top of my head when I read your post. Someone from CKAN staff members need to provide better answer how to handle other dependencies for mod.

fire spitter how i ganna find it plugin

[kcs123]

fire spitter how i ganna find it plugin

You need only firespitter core, if you install it trough CKAN.

[Dazpoet]

Hey all, I have some questions and I hope you can help me.

I'm trying to make some "sort of official" configs for Nertea's mods. We occasionally get bug reports that turn out to be incomplete installs caused by CKAN, beause some of these packs are a bit complicated to install and whoever originally added the mods there didn't do it properly and/or didn't update to the latest KSP version. I'd like to remedy that, at least for the time being But I'm a first-time user of CKAN and there are some things I don't understand right away.

Thing is, looking at which of Nertea's mods are even listed on CKAN right now, I notice that Near Future Props is listed as a separate mod that can be installed. This confuses me a bit, because Nertea doesn't distribute that as a separate mod AFAIK. It's a subfolder that's distributed along with Near Future Spacecraft and Stockalike Station Parts Expansion, included in the downloadable zip file. How can it be that it shows up separate in CKAN? Is that some sort of JSON magic - if yes, I'd like to learn it If no, does that mean somebody is rehosting this somewhere? If so, can I find out who and where?

Another thing: at least one of Nertea's mods ships a folder with multiple optional extras, mostly MM configs that drastically change how some parts work. The user is supposed to decide for themselves which of those extras they want to install. I understand I can tell CKAN to install individual folders in a very fine-grained manner, but... how do I let the user choose what they want? If I just go ahead and don't ship the Extras folder, we'll get more complaints about missing features. If I just install the whole folder, people are going to get completely different stats than advertised for a lot of parts.

NearFuture Props is grabbed directly from inside Stockalike Stations parts, aka we download the .zip from https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/351 and break out the Props folder and install that. Since the folder is needed by 2 of the mods and CKAN cannot, will not and don't want to overwrite anything it has been broken out into its own module even though it is grabbed from within the original mod. There is no magic apart from someone adding it this way. See https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/NetKAN/blob/master/NetKAN/NearFutureProps.netkan

You'd need to specify which mod add Extras, if you're refering to Near Future Propulsion and the modified nukes we've solved this by adding a NearFuture Propulsion Extras modentry like this https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/NetKAN/blob/master/NetKAN/NearFuturePropulsionExtras.netkan which in turn depends on https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/NetKAN/blob/master/NetKAN/NearFuturePropulsion.netkan . If you mean another of the NF mods I don't think we have any Extras installs for them but would love adding them if there's a need. As it stands right now when you install Near Future Propulsion it suggests to the user that they install the Extras for converting nukes, as was approved by Nertea here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52042-1-02-Near-Future-Technologies-%28NFSolar-NFSpacecraft-NFConstruction-hotfixed%29?p=1807385&viewfull=1#post1807385

Is it very possible to create as many or as few NF extra modules as you want in CKAN and tell it exactly what dependencies are needed for each Extra, tell the user what that extra config does and have CKAN handle any conflicts between configs. You can also have the original NF mods prompt the user with both recommended and suggested (the latter being a weaker recommend) configs for each mod.

If you'd like to learn how to add something you can start by looking at https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/wiki/Adding-a-mod-to-the-CKAN and reading https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/blob/master/Spec.md or just look at examples in the NetKAN repository. I'd recommend opening an issue over at https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/NetKAN/issues/new detailing what you want to achieve and any and all problems you've seen so far so we can fix them.

To satisfy user demands and also be CKAN install friendly to some degree, is it possible to compress extra features in zip file ?

I mean, zip file inside of zip file. CKAN will decompress only necessary files in gamedata folder, leaving optional files in zip.

You can provide some extra info somewhere to inform user what kind of optional files he need to unzip.

Just idea, that poped up on top of my head when I read your post. Someone from CKAN staff members need to provide better answer how to handle other dependencies for mod.

Adding the optional files in a .zip inside the .zip file would acctually be _extremely_ detrimental since that means we cannot grab them and install seperatly. If they're just laying about we can filter them out and create a seperate module to install them.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Dazpoet
Spelling errors

[Streetwind]

You can provide some extra info somewhere to inform user what kind of optional files he need to unzip.

How exactly would I do that? I mean, does CKAN allow you to post messages to the user during the installation process or something?

It wouldn't be enough to put this info in the forum thread or in a readme file. When somebody uses CKAN, they by definition circumvent both. So CKAN must be able to provide this info to the user, and ideally in a better way than using the Metadata field (which nobody looks at for install instructions because nobody puts install instructions in there). I'm not seeing anything to that end in the documentation, so I don't know how you would achieve that.

(But I understand if you're just a user trying to help, I appreciate it )

- - - Updated - - -

NearFuture Props is grabbed directly from inside Stockalike Stations parts, aka we download the .zip from https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/351 and break out the Props folder and install that. Since the folder is needed by 2 of the mods and CKAN cannot, will not and don't want to overwrite anything it has been broken out into its own module even though it is grabbed from within the original mod. There is no magic apart from someone adding it this way. See https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/NetKAN/blob/master/NetKAN/NearFutureProps.netkan

Oh... Ooohh! That makes a whole lot of sense, and is actually pretty cool. So basically I can list arbitrary subfolders separately on CKAN by simply pointing to the parent file and then defining only the install for the subfolder. That actually resolves many potential complications I was worrying about.

...Though I suppose ot comes at the cost of management overhead, if a mod that is shipped in a single zip file needs to be split up into 2-4 CKAN entries. Oh well.

I'm going to try my hand at this and will bug you again with whatever questions invariably come up as I go.

[Dazpoet]

Oh... Ooohh! That makes a whole lot of sense, and is actually pretty cool. So basically I can list arbitrary subfolders separately on CKAN by simply pointing to the parent file and then defining only the install for the subfolder. That actually resolves many potential complications I was worrying about.

...Though I suppose ot comes at the cost of management overhead, if a mod that is shipped in a single zip file needs to be split up into 2-4 CKAN entries. Oh well.

I'm going to try my hand at this and will bug you again with whatever questions invariably come up as I go.

I'm not sure what you mean with management overhead here, once you create .netkan files which inflates the .ckan files into our metadata repository the only management you'll ever need to do is if something fundamentally changes such as the folderstructure or new dependencies. You create a single .netkan file which describes where to scrape for new versions of the mod and how they should be installed (For NF mods this seems to be KerbalStuff) and every time a new version is released our bot picks it up and push a new .ckan file for that version to our users who can then choose to update to that new version through the client.

I highly recommend furher questions are placed into the NetKAN repo where it's easier to track this issue than in a forum thread. I do very much want NF mods to work perfectly through CKAN since I use and love them so please bombard away with questions

[Streetwind]

...I think I recognize about half the words you just used as belonging to the English language!

I'm gonna head to bed for now, and then tomorrow I'll try to make sense of what file goes where does what for who. It's probably a no-brainer after you've done it a few times, but the same can be said for advanced calculus...

[tkw]

Download the newest copy of Firespitter from ckan. Verify that you have the firespitter plugin in your gamedata folder.

i having issue kso shuttle won't pull up

[Dazpoet]

i having issue kso shuttle won't pull up

What version of CKAN are you using and with which version of KSP? Do you have any manually installed mods, if so which ones? What is the output of 'ckan list --porcelain'? Can you upload your registry.json somewhere so we can have a look at it?