Re: Why does tlmgr repeatedly list arara as "forcibly removed"

> Herb Schulz wrote:
> 
>> On Mar 5, 2026, at 4:15 PM, Murray Eisenberg <murrayeisenberg at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> With the TeXLive Utility under macOS, each time I open it lately (for TL 2026), I see arara and arara-universal-darwin packages listed as "forcibly removed".
>> 
>> Why?
> 
> That binary (and the symlink to it) are removed from the TeX Live 2026 installed by MacTeX-2026 because it isn't properly signed by the authors (the binary for arara is supplied by outside authors and isn't compiled with the rest of theTeX Live binaries). Proper signing is a prerequisite for Apple to approve an install package so that must be removed.
> 
> However, you can easily get rid of that annoying message by installing via TLU. When you see that message just select both items and choose Actions->Install Selected Packages (Opt-Cmd-I) which will install the missing items.

For software to be distributed as a .pkg install package, as MacTeX is, it needs to satisfy three requirements:

- Be signed with a Developer ID.

- Be a hardened runtime, namely sandboxed with specific activity outside the sandbox explicitly authorized via entitlements.

- Be notarized, namely for the package to be uploaded to Apple servers which scan it automatically for suspicious content.

Arara includes libjnidispatch from the Java Native Access (JNA) project, which isn't signed. This is seen by extracting arara.jar with "jar xf arara.jar", then 

% codesign -dv com/sun/jna/darwin-aarch64/libjnidispatch.jnilib  
Executable=/Users/brunovoisin/Desktop/Software/Test/TeXLive/arara/com/sun/jna/darwin-aarch64/libjnidispatch.jnilib
Identifier=libjnidispatch.jnilib
Format=Mach-O thin (arm64)
CodeDirectory v=20400 size=1358 flags=0x20002(adhoc,linker-signed) hashes=39+0 location=embedded
Signature=adhoc
Info.plist=not bound
TeamIdentifier=not set
Sealed Resources=none
Internal requirements=none

% codesign -dv com/sun/jna/darwin-x86-64/libjnidispatch.jnilib
com/sun/jna/darwin-x86-64/libjnidispatch.jnilib: code object is not signed at all

So the macOS components of libjnidispatch include no valid signature. The JNA developers have made it clear they won't sign it, and it is expected from the developers that use the library to sign it instead:

https://github.com/java-native-access/jna/issues/1306#issuecomment-772696095
https://github.com/java-native-access/jna/issues/1592#issuecomment-1917556290

As a result, arara doesn't pass notarization and is rejected.

This is solved, when preparing MacTeX, by removing arara with tlmgr. Then, after installation, TLU detects arara and arara.universal-darwin as "Forcibly removed". At that stage they can then be installed easily, as described by Herb.

Bruno Voisin