hashicorp-packer-1.4.1-1.lbn25.x86_64

Packer is a tool for building identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source configuration.

Packer is lightweight, runs on every major operating system, and is highly performant, creating machine images for multiple platforms in parallel. Packer comes out of the box with support for the following platforms:

Amazon EC2 (AMI). Both EBS-backed and instance-store AMIs DigitalOcean Docker Google Compute Engine OpenStack Parallels QEMU. Both KVM and Xen images. VirtualBox VMware

Support for other platforms can be added via plugins.

After Packer is installed, create your first template, which tells Packer what platforms to build images for and how you want to build them. In our case, we'll create a simple AMI that has Redis pre-installed. Save this file as quick-start.json. Be sure to replace any credentials with your own.

{ "builders": [{ "type": "amazon-ebs", "access_key": "YOUR KEY HERE", "secret_key": "YOUR SECRET KEY HERE", "region": "us-east-1", "source_ami": "ami-de0d9eb7", "instance_type": "t1.micro", "ssh_username": "ubuntu", "ami_name": "packer-example {{timestamp}}" }] }

Next, tell Packer to build the image:

$ packer build quick-start.json ...

Packer will build an AMI according to the "quick-start" template. The AMI will be available in your AWS account. To delete the AMI, you must manually delete it using the AWS console. Packer builds your images, it does not manage their lifecycle. Where they go, how they're run, etc. is up to you.