toolkit/bin/updater

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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 page used as the primary source for version check and/or regex scraping.
from	NO	Strategy to use: web, github or http. Default is web.
local_version	NO	Currently installed version. Updated after each successful run.
re_version	NO	Regex to extract the new version string from the HTML at url.
re_download	NO	Regex to extract the download link from HTML. Should capture either a full URL or a relative path.
update_url	NO	Base URL or direct download link. Used when re_download yields a relative path or when no regex is provided.
update_file_pass	NO	Password to unzip the downloaded archive.
merge	NO	If set, merge the freshly downloaded files into the existing folder.
pre_update	NO	Script or command to run before performing the update.
post_update	NO	Script or command to run immediately after the update download completes.
post_unpack	NO	Script or command to run after unpacking the downloaded archive.

Strategy for download

1. If re_download is set
   a. Try to extract link from the initial url HTML.
   b. If you get a match and it’s a valid absolute URL → use it.
   c. If you get a match but it’s a relative path →

   • If update_url is defined, prepend it.
   • Otherwise, build from the original page’s scheme+netloc.
     d. If no match on the initial HTML and update_url is defined → fetch update_url once, retry the same regex.
     e. If still no match → raise an error.

2. Else if only update_url is set
   Use update_url directly as the download link.

3. HTTP mode (from = http)

   • Sends a HEAD request to update_url.
   • Extracts a version fingerprint by hashing either the Last-Modified or Content-Length header.
   • If the hash differs from local_version (or force_download), uses update_url as the download link.
   • If the headers match and force_download is false, no update is performed.

4. Otherwise
   Error out: neither re_download nor update_url provided, so no download link can be determined.

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