rdmbair15m5-changelog-20260830-1255-parallels-fleet-removal

Uninstalled and zapped Parallels Desktop across all hosts in the Mac fleet after resolving the Homebrew cask pkill uninstallation blocker.

Summary

Parallels Desktop uninstallation via Homebrew (brew uninstall parallels) was failing with exit code 1 because the cask's uninstall script directive executed /usr/bin/pkill -TERM prl_client_app. When Parallels is not actively running, pkill finds no matching processes and returns 1, which Homebrew treated as a fatal script failure (must_succeed: true).

By running a transient dummy prl_client_app process during uninstallation, pkill received the expected process match and returned exit code 0, allowing Homebrew's cask uninstaller to proceed with the complete removal and zap sequence.

Scope

• Hosts remediated: rdmbair15m5, rdmsm4x, jdmbair13m5
• Hosts verified clean: rdmbair13m5, rdmpw3265m, rdmpw3275m

Exact Actions & Commands Run

1. Local Host (rdmbair15m5):

   • Compiled transient helper /tmp/prl_client_app.
   • Executed brew uninstall --zap parallels while helper handled SIGTERM.
   • Cleaned up temporary compilation artifacts.
   • Verified removal of /Applications/Parallels Desktop.app, Caskroom metadata, /usr/local/bin/prl*, and system preferences.

2. Fleet Remote Hosts (rdmsm4x, jdmbair13m5):

   • Applied identical remediation and executed brew uninstall --zap parallels.
   • Verified complete removal of app bundles, casks, Caskroom directories, and /usr/local/bin/prl* symlinks.

3. Fleet-wide Verification Matrix:

   • Checked all 6 hosts via SSH/local shell for Cask presence, App bundle, Caskroom paths, and CLI binaries.

Verification Evidence

==================== Host: rdmsm4x ====================
Host: rdmsm4x
Cask parallels: CLEAN (not installed)
App Bundle: CLEAN (absent)
Caskroom: CLEAN (absent)
CLI Tools: CLEAN (absent)

==================== Host: rdmbair13m5 ====================
Host: rdmbair13m5
Cask parallels: CLEAN (not installed)
App Bundle: CLEAN (absent)
Caskroom: CLEAN (absent)
CLI Tools: CLEAN (absent)

==================== Host: rdmbair15m5 ====================
Host: rdmbair15m5
Cask parallels: CLEAN (not installed)
App Bundle: CLEAN (absent)
Caskroom: CLEAN (absent)
CLI Tools: CLEAN (absent)

==================== Host: rdmpw3265m ====================
Host: rdmpw3265m
Cask parallels: CLEAN (not installed)
App Bundle: CLEAN (absent)
Caskroom: CLEAN (absent)
CLI Tools: CLEAN (absent)

==================== Host: rdmpw3275m ====================
Host: rdmpw3275m
Cask parallels: CLEAN (not installed)
App Bundle: CLEAN (absent)
Caskroom: CLEAN (absent)
CLI Tools: CLEAN (absent)

==================== Host: jdmbair13m5 ====================
Host: jdmbair13m5
Cask parallels: CLEAN (not installed)
App Bundle: CLEAN (absent)
Caskroom: CLEAN (absent)
CLI Tools: CLEAN (absent)

Data & VM Storage Status

• Existing virtual machine images in /Users/richh/Parallels on rdmbair15m5 (macOS.macvm [24GB], Windows 11.pvm [23GB]) were intentionally preserved per data-loss protection rules.

Outstanding Owner Actions

• If the 47GB VM disk images on rdmbair15m5 (~/Parallels/) are no longer needed, they can be manually deleted.