Creating AWS Image From Packer

• To create AWS Image from Packer we need some info
  • AWS Account:
    • Create Secret Key and Access Key for Packer (IAM User)
  • Source Image AMI
  • Provisioning Script
  • Region
• Create a folder and a json file with the following content

{
    "builders": []
}

• Lets create access key and secret key as mentioned over here
• Fill all the required Fields from amazon-ebs builder as shown below

{
    "builders": [
        {
            "type": "amazon-ebs",
            "ami_name": "tomcatfrompacker",
            "ami_description": "tomcat from packer",
            "access_key": "",
            "secret_key": "",
            "region": "us-west-2",
            "instance_type": "t2.micro",
            "source_ami": "ami-06d51e91cea0dac8d"

    }]
}

• Now execute the command packer validate aws.json and you should observe an error about ssh_username add ssh_username to the builder section

{
    "builders": [
        {
            "type": "amazon-ebs",
            "ami_name": "tomcatfrompacker",
            "ami_description": "tomcat from packer",
            "access_key": "",
            "secret_key": "",
            "region": "us-west-2",
            "instance_type": "t2.micro",
            "source_ami": "ami-06d51e91cea0dac8d",
            "ssh_username": "ubuntu"

    }]
}

• Now lets build the image using debug build option

packer build -debug aws.json

• Now manually deregister ami after image creation is success.
• Now lets add provisioner. I have set of manual linux commands to be executed and i will be using a shell provisioner Refer Here
• Lets add provisioners section

{
    "builders": [
        {
            "type": "amazon-ebs",
            "ami_name": "tomcatfrompacker",
            "ami_description": "tomcat from packer",
            "access_key": "AKIA3TXJQGAJFDVFHD7C",
            "secret_key": "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",
            "region": "us-west-2",
            "instance_type": "t2.micro",
            "source_ami": "ami-06d51e91cea0dac8d",
            "ssh_username": "ubuntu"

    }],
    "provisioners": [
        {
            "type": "shell",
            "inline": [
                "sudo apt-get update", 
                "sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk -y",
                "sudo apt-get install tomcat8 -y"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

• Try building image using packer build