Introduction

packer.io is a utility which builds automated machine images.

Packer can be used to support a variety of builders such as Amazon AMIs, Docker images, Google Cloud images, VirtualBox etc... all from a single configuration.

The utility is highly configurable and can also accept different provisioners such as chef or puppet or simply shell scripts.

Pelias

This repo contains the configuration required to build images of Pelias services, for use in production and development environments.

Installing Packer

see: https://www.packer.io/docs/install/index.html

# linux example:

# download and extract
$ wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/packer/1.0.2/packer_1.0.2_linux_amd64.zip
$ unzip packer_1.0.2_linux_amd64.zip

# place the binary somewhere on your path
$ echo $PATH
$ sudo mv packer /usr/local/bin/

# packer is installed
$ packer

Working with submodules

many of the chef scripts in this repo are maintained by external organizations, the code is 'linked' using the git submodule command.

Update your local submodules after modifying source or executing a git pull

$ git submodule update --init --recursive

Upgrade all submodules to the latest version

$ git submodule foreach git pull

Add a new submodule

$ git submodule add https://github.com/redguide/nodejs.git chef/cookbooks/nodejs

Remove a submodule

you can remove a module by following these directions.

Lint cookbooks

use foodcritic to display potential errors in your cookbooks:

$ foodcritic chef/cookbooks

Configuring build vars

see: https://www.packer.io/docs/templates/user-variables.html

you will need to create a file which holds your global build variables:

note: this file is ignored by git, you must enters your AWS credentials here

$ cat config/globals.json
{
  "aws_region": "us-east-1",
  "aws_access_key": "",
  "aws_secret_key": ""
}

Build an image

note: you can specify more than one variable file, these will be auto merged before running the template

$ packer build -var-file config/globals.json templates/base.json

Overriding variables on the CLI

see: https://www.packer.io/docs/templates/user-variables.html

you can override any default variables using the -var flag on the CLI:

$ packer build \
  -var-file config/globals.json \
  -var 'aws_instance_type=m3.xlarge' \
  templates/base.json