Packer

Open Source cross cloud image builder. Run via Cli and build for multiple cloud platforms

Install

$ wget -O- https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg
$ echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hashicorp.list
$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install packer

AWS Creds

$ export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=”anaccesskey”
$ export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=”asecretkey”
$ export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=”us-east-1"

Example

$ vim packer-aws-quick-start.pkr.hcl 
variable "access_key" {
  type    = string
  default = "${env("AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID")}"
}

variable "secret_key" {
  type      = string
  default   = "${env("AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY")}"
  sensitive = true
}

locals { timestamp = regex_replace(timestamp(), "[- TZ:]", "") }

source "amazon-ebs" "quick-start" {
  access_key    = "${var.access_key}"
  ami_name      = "ami-name ${local.timestamp}"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
  region        = "us-east-1"
  secret_key    = "${var.secret_key}"
  source_ami    = "ami-0000000"
  ssh_username  = "username"
}

build {
  sources = ["source.amazon-ebs.quick-start"]
}

AWS Image

$ packer init .
$ packer fmt .
$ packer validate .
$ packer build  packer-aws-quick-start.pkr.hcl

References

https://github.com/hashicorp/packer
https://www.packer.io/
https://learn.hashicorp.com/tutorials/packer/aws-get-started-provision?in=packer/aws-get-started
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=4ops.packer
https://www.packer.io/plugins/provisioners/ansible/ansible
https://tekanaid.com/posts/hashicorp-packer-terraform-and-ansible-to-set-up-jenkins/