hashicorp/packer repository overview

⁠Packer Docker Container

The root of this repository contains the officially supported HashiCorp Dockerfile to build the hashicorp/packer docker image. The dev docker image should be built for local dev and testing, while the production docker image, release, is built in CI and makes use of CI-built binaries. The light and full docker images are built using the official binaries from releases.hashicorp.com.

⁠Build

Refer to the Makefile of this repository, especially the docker and docker-dev targets to build a local version of the dev image based on the sources available.

⁠Usage

This repository automatically builds containers for using the packer⁠ command line program. It contains three distinct varieties of build: a light version, which just contains the binary, a full build, which contains the Packer binary with pre-installed plugins, and a dev version, which compiles the binary from source inside the container before exposing it for use.

⁠light

The light version of this container will copy the current stable version of the binary, taken from releases.hashicorp.com, into the container. It will also set it for use as the default entrypoint. This will be the best option for most uses, especially if you are just looking to run the binary from a container. The latest tag on DockerHub also points to this version.

You can use this version with the following:

docker run <args> hashicorp/packer:light <command>

⁠full

The full version of the container builds upon light and pre-installs the plugins officially maintained by HashiCorp.

You can use this version with the following:

docker run <args> hashicorp/packer:full <command>

You can view the list of pre-installed plugins with the following:

docker run <args> hashicorp/packer:full plugins installed

⁠Running a build:

The easiest way to run a command that references a configuration with one or more template files, is to mount a volume for the local workspace.

Running packer init

docker run \
    -v `pwd`:/workspace -w /workspace \
    -e PACKER_PLUGIN_PATH=/workspace/.packer.d/plugins \
    hashicorp/packer:latest \
    init .

~> Note: packer init is available from Packer v1.7.0 and later

The command will mount the working directory (pwd) to workspace, which is the working directory (-w) inside the container. Any plugin installed with packer init will be installed under the directory specified under the PACKER_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable. PACKER_PLUGIN_PATH must be set to a path inside the volume mount so that plugins can become available at packer build.

Running packer build

docker run \
    -v `pwd`:/workspace -w /workspace \
    -e PACKER_PLUGIN_PATH=/workspace/.packer.d/plugins \
    hashicorp/packer:latest \
    build .

⁠Building old-legacy JSON templates

For old-legacy JSON, the build command must specify the template file(s).

docker run \
    -v `pwd`:/workspace -w /workspace \
    hashicorp/packer:latest \
    build template.json

For the manual installation⁠ of third-party plugins, we recommended that plugin binaries are placed under a sub-directory under the working directory. Add -e PACKER_PLUGIN_PATH=/workspace/<subdirectory_plugin_path> to the command above to tell Packer where the plugins are.

To pass a var file (var.json) to the build command:

docker run \
    -v `pwd`:/workspace -w /workspace \
    hashicorp/packer:latest \
    build --var-file var.json template.json

var.json is expected to be inside the local working directory (pwd) and in the container's workspace mount.