packer/.release/docker

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 official docker image is built using the official binaries from releases.hashicorp.com.

Build

See the Makefile targets in the root of this repository for building Packer images in either development or release modes:

• make docker-dev
• make docker-official
• make docker-multiarch-official
• make docker

Usage

This repository automatically builds containers for using the packer command line program. It contains two distinct varieties of build, an official version, aka light, which just contains the binary. It also contains a dev version, aka full, which compiles the binary from source inside the container before exposing it for use.

official

The official 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. This image is tagged as both official and light. The latest tag on DockerHub also points to this version.

You can use this version with the following:

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

dev

The dev version of this container contains all of the source code found in the current ref of this repository. Using Google's official golang image as a base, this container will copy the source from the current branch, build the binary, and expose it for running. Because all build artifacts are included, it should be quite a bit larger than the official image. This version of the container is most useful for development or debugging.

You can use this version with the following:

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

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.