hashicorp/packer

Enhancement: Floppy img builders

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#7969 opened on Aug 10, 2019

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enhancementhelp wanted

Description

Legacy operating systems like MS-DOS did not have official CD-ROM installation media (ISO) available, but rather floppy disks (IMG). For these older guests, it would be helpful for Packer to offer floppy-based builders (e.g. virtualbox-img rather than virtualbox-iso), so that these guests can be built directly from historical IMG files.

As a workaround, users can instruct Packer to boot an Ubuntu Live CD or similar, and use boot_command to launch a terminal, whereupon dd, shutdown -r, etc. can manipulate a floppy-based guest. It's not pretty.

Contributor guide

Tech stack
go
Domain
infrastructuretooling
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
over 1 week
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
mostly clear
Prerequisites
Go programmingPacker builder architecture
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
5
Research direction
Investigate existing ISO builders (e.g., virtualbox iso) to understand the builder interface. Research floppy disk image format (IMG) and how to boot from it in virtual machine environments. Examine Packer's source code for builder registration and step execution patterns. Consider if a common base builder can be reused or if a new builder must be created from scratch. There are no linked PRs or comments providing additional guidance.