I’m installing mender on devices where some specific software version is already installed. Is there a way to let mender “know” what the currently installed version is, even though that version was preinstalled (i.e., not installed via mender)?
Not officially, but you can cheat your way to it by installing a dummy file, like an empty /tmp/dummy using the single-file Update Module, and then make sure you set the right Provides values in the artifact. Compare it to the real artifact, and use the --provides option of mender-artifact to set the headers.
Thanks. I wanted to avoid having to go through deployment on all devices. Was rather looking for a way to have mender configured with the currently installed version upon - say - setup. But, this is a nice workaround 