[aerogear-dev] Improving customization abilities of OpenShift cartridge

[Karel Piwko]

Hi All,

I'd like to know your opinion on following changes to UnifiedPush
Server. They are both focused on improving customization process for the
cartridge.

Just in short, current update process now:
1/ Clone official git repository of cartridge
2/ Extract wars and do the modifications or build ones
3/ Package wars
4/ Push cartridge to your own repository
5/ Create cartridge from your own repository

Whereas, I'm proposing:
1/ Create cartridge from official repository
2/ Clone git repository for gear created by Openshift (by default if rhc
is used)
3/ Modify some files there we expose for user modification
4/ Push back to make changes live

What particular configuration elements I'm interested to have
externalized?

1/ Ability to load keycloak.json from external location

=> This allows user to create cartridge and modify it prior the first
access. This allows users to configure it to be consumable by other
services automatically, e.g. they can add developer users, roles, etc.

2/ Externalize GCM/APNs locations
 
=> Now, URLs are hardcoded in GCM/APNs JARs. If they would be loaded
from external location (defaults can still be hardcoded), this allows
user to easily check business logic that queries data in UPS and not
sending any messages. Also allows to put proxy in between UPS and
APNs/GCMs.

Both these will significantly reduce QE overhead. However, I believe
they are valuable for other as well. 

Feedback and tomatoes (I prefer plum ones) are welcomed.

Thanks,

Karel