FEATURE REQUEST: Support system-wide MATLAB MCP toolbox installation for container images

[eng3]

Description

matlab-mcp-core-server --setup-matlab installs the required MATLAB toolbox per user. This does not work well for container images that create runtime users dynamically, because each user must repeat setup before MCP works.

Please add a supported system-wide installation option, for example:
matlab-mcp-core-server --setup-matlab --system

It should install the MATLAB MCP toolbox into a shared location and register it through the MATLAB installation’s matlabrc.m, so MCP works for every container user without first-run setup.

This would avoid relying on undocumented source/archive layouts to extract and globally install the toolbox. (my current solution)

[ybenouag]

Thanks for the detailed write-up @eng3, and for calling out the dynamic-runtime-user case.

You're right: --setup-matlab today installs per user (via matlab.addons.toolbox.installToolbox), which lands in the invoking user's add-ons area. That doesn't work for container images that create users at runtime, and reaching into undocumented archive layouts to install globally is exactly what a supported option should replace.

Marking this as an enhancement for design. A system-wide install (shared location + matlabrc.m registration, as you suggested) is the direction we'll evaluate, including how it interacts with licensing and permissions in a container. We'll follow up here once scoped.

[eng3]

Note that many aspects of MATLAB are setup this way (per user). Large labs or corporations have a need to have configuration management over their systems. It often is not practical to run installs with manual steps on large numbers of computers then expect users to get all the steps right to install addons. Users often don't have privileged access (which some addons require). My solution is to use a container with everything setup in it but it required many workarounds for many of the matlab products.
My container is based on the Mathworks provided container. A user (matlab) is created and everything is installed under that user in the container. I dynamically create the user account (of the person running the container) and point the support package path to the matlab user folder and open up the permissions.