CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing to boot2docker

Be Respectful

If you're not a maintainer of the boot2docker project, please try to refrain from making authoritative comments (especially misleading LGTM). On the flip side, constructive comments contributing to useful dialog are welcome and encouraged.

Commit Messages

It's recommended that commit messages can be applied against the following template and still be grammatically correct, but not strictly required:

If applied, this commit will <message>

For example, if the commit message was Fix file sharing bugs:

If applied, this commit will Fix file sharing bugs

or Add rainbow features:

If applied, this commit will Add rainbow features

Whitespace, Punctuation

Tabs for indentation.

&& and || at the beginning of lines, not at the end.

Single indentation for each level of "scope".

Alphabetizing where appropriate.

For example:

RUN some command \
	&& some other \
		command \
		with \
		useful \
		args \
	&& last command

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
		apackage \
		bpackage \
		cpackage \
		dpackage \
		zpackage \
		\
		unrelatedpackage1 \
		unrelatedpackage2 \
		unrelatedpackage3 \
	&& rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Building

There is a generated Makefile -- if you're using bash, tab completion should work properly.

Each "variant" is built from the corresponding Dockerfile.<variant> file. For example, the virtualbox variant is built from Dockerfile.virtualbox into boot2docker-virtualbox.iso.

Makefile targets

make all

This target (the default target if none is supplied) will build all the "release" ISOs (one per variant).

make boot2docker-<variant>.iso

This target will build the appropriate images and build/extract the ISO from the final result.

For example, make boot2docker-virtualbox.iso will docker build -f Dockerfile.base ., docker build -f Dockerfile.docker ., docker build -f Dockerfile.virtualbox ., followed by ISO building and extraction.

make audit-<variant>

This target will build the appropriate images and then open less to view a list of the files that would be included in the final ISO for the given variant.

make explore-<variant>

This target will build the appropriate images and then open a bash shell to facilitate exploration of the image that produces the given ISO variant.

Customizing

To create your own variant, make a new file called Dockerfile.myvariant with contents similar to the following:

# choose an appropriate base -- one of the variants or "docker" is recommended
FROM dockercore/boot2docker:virtualbox

# steps to modify the image in whatever way you desire for your variant
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
		git \
		golang \
	&& rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Then, use make boot2docker-myvariant.iso to build an ISO.