User customization without forking

[daxgames]

User customization without forking

• Part of #179 so closing #179

Note: Does not affect existing make commands if PREFIX is not set.

Users can clone boxcutter/windows and make user specific copies of Packer templates, scripts and configs they can edit that are ignored by git.

• Packer *.json template files can be symlinks to files in another repo.
• Files in floppy and script cannot be symlinks but can be links to files in other repos.

This adds flexibility to customize and to easily sync with the upstream repo at any time!

cp eval-win10x64-enterprise.json [company].eval-win10x64-enterprise.json
make PREFIX=[company]. [company].[target]
rm -rf output-virtualbox-iso
mkdir -p box/virtualbox
packer build -on-error=cleanup -only=virtualbox-iso -var 'version=1.0.4' -var 'update=false' -var 'headless=false' -var "shutdown_command=shutdown /s /t 10 /f /d p:4:1 /c Packer_Shutdown" -var "iso_url=file://./iso/win10x64.iso" -var "iso_checksum=a4ea45ec1282e85fc84af49acf7a8d649c31ac5c" [company].eval-win10x64-enterprise.json

• Add $(PREFIX) to the Makefile
  • Run make PREFIX=[company]. [company].[target] to build from [company].target.json
• Add user customization ignores to the .gitignore floppy and script folders:
  • *.*.json
  • floppy/*.*.*
  • script/*.*.*

I use it as follows:

I have a repo in Github with my customizations that are business specific:

floppy/*
    Scripts - Proxy Settings
    SSL Certs - Required to get to the internet so I can build. (IT Security Requiremnt)
scripts/*
    Any business specific custom script that should not be in this repo.
Makefile.local
Packer Templates
link_repos.sh
    Clones boxcutter/windows to ./boxcutter_windows
    Symlinks required files/folders from my repo into ./boxcutter_windows/*
        These links are added to the ./boxcutter\windows\.gitignore by this PR.
    Links required files from [my repo]/floppy into ./boxcutter_windows/floppy/*
        Symlinks don't work here
    Links required files from [my repo]/scripts into ./boxcutter_windows/scripts/*
        Symlinks don't work here

I can now use boxcutter/windows unmodified with my user customizations that have no business being in your repo and everything is still in source control.

I think this is a great add to this project for users that need user customizations and don't want to fork and keep their personal repo synched with this repo.

[arizvisa]

Cool. I'm for this.

One addition, though, can you define PREFIX?= after the other variables in the beginning of the makefile and add a comment which mentions that it's used to prefix the targets? This way people whom surf through the Makefile can immediately see any variables that are used/customizeable.

Sorry it took me a bit to follow up on this, was afk for a few weeks and apparently can't get Internet where I live, so it's hard for me to test things at the moment. Heh.

[daxgames]

@arizvisa Done.

[arizvisa]

Merging.