Using AutoPkg recipes with alternate software downloads

An issue that crops up occasionally for AutoPkg is that a vendor will release a new version of their software but be slow to update the download location which an AutoPkg recipe is looking at. Alternatively, there may be instances where a software vendor releases two versions of their software and AutoPkg only picks up one of them. A good example of this is Oracle’s Java 8, where the past few releases of Java 8 have actually had two versions of Java 8 released simultaneously.

Fortunately, if you can manually download the needed software, there is a way to leverage AutoPkg to generate the needed installer without needing to change your AutoPkg recipe. See below the jump for details.