description	The amazon-instance Packer builder is able to create Amazon AMIs backed by instance storage as the root device. For more information on the difference between instance storage and EBS-backed instances, see the storage for the root device section in the EC2 documentation.
page_title	Amazon instance-store - Builders
nav_title	Instance

AMI Builder (instance-store)

Type: amazon-instance Artifact BuilderId: mitchellh.amazon.instance

The amazon-instance Packer builder is able to create Amazon AMIs backed by instance storage as the root device. For more information on the difference between instance storage and EBS-backed instances, see the "storage for the root device" section in the EC2 documentation.

This builder builds an AMI by launching an EC2 instance from an existing instance-storage backed AMI, provisioning that running machine, and then bundling and creating a new AMI from that machine. This is all done in your own AWS account. This builder will create temporary key pairs, security group rules, etc. that provide it temporary access to the instance while the image is being created. This simplifies configuration quite a bit.

This builder does not manage AMIs. Once it creates an AMI and stores it in your account, it is up to you to use, delete, etc. the AMI.

-> Note: Temporary resources are, by default, all created with the prefix packer. This can be useful if you want to restrict the security groups and key pairs packer is able to operate on.

-> Note: This builder requires that the Amazon EC2 AMI Tools are installed onto the machine. This can be done within a provisioner, but must be done before the builder finishes running.

~> Instance builds are not supported for Windows. Use amazon-ebs instead.

Configuration Reference

There are many configuration options available for the builder. In addition to the items listed here, you will want to look at the general configuration references for AMI, BlockDevices, Access, Run and Communicator configuration references, which are necessary for this build to succeed and can be found further down the page.

Required:

@include 'builder/instance/Config-required.mdx'

Optional:

@include 'builder/instance/Config-not-required.mdx'

AMI Configuration

Required:

@include 'builder/common/AMIConfig-required.mdx'

Optional:

@include 'builder/common/AMIConfig-not-required.mdx'

Access Configuration

Required:

@include 'builder/common/AccessConfig-required.mdx'

Optional:

@include 'builder/common/AccessConfig-not-required.mdx'

Assume Role Configuration

@include 'builder/common/AssumeRoleConfig.mdx'

@include 'builder/common/AssumeRoleConfig-not-required.mdx'

Polling Configuration

@include 'builder/common/AWSPollingConfig.mdx'

@include 'builder/common/AWSPollingConfig-not-required.mdx'

Run Configuration

Required:

@include 'builder/common/RunConfig-required.mdx'

Optional:

@include 'builder/common/RunConfig-not-required.mdx'

@include 'builders/aws-session-manager.mdx'

Block Devices Configuration

Block devices can be nested in the ami_block_device_mappings or the launch_block_device_mappings array.

@include 'builder/common/BlockDevice.mdx'

Optional:

@include 'builder/common/BlockDevice-not-required.mdx'

Communicator Configuration

Optional:

@include 'packer-plugin-sdk/communicator/Config-not-required.mdx'

@include 'packer-plugin-sdk/communicator/SSH-not-required.mdx'

@include 'packer-plugin-sdk/communicator/SSHTemporaryKeyPair-not-required.mdx'

@include 'packer-plugin-sdk/communicator/SSH-Key-Pair-Name-not-required.mdx'

@include 'packer-plugin-sdk/communicator/SSH-Private-Key-File-not-required.mdx'

@include 'packer-plugin-sdk/communicator/SSH-Agent-Auth-not-required.mdx'

Basic Example

Here is a basic example. It is completely valid except for the access keys:

source "amazon-instance" "basic-example" {
  region = "us-east-1"
  source_ami = "ami-d9d6a6b0"
  instance_type = "m1.small"
  ssh_username = "ubuntu"

  account_id = "0123-4567-0890"
  s3_bucket = "packer-images"
  x509_cert_path = "x509.cert"
  x509_key_path = "x509.key"
  x509_upload_path = "/tmp"
}

build {
  source "sources.amazon-instance.basic-example" {
    ami_name = "packer-quick-start {{timestamp}}"
  }
}

{
  "type": "amazon-instance",
  "access_key": "YOUR KEY HERE",
  "secret_key": "YOUR SECRET KEY HERE",
  "region": "us-east-1",
  "source_ami": "ami-d9d6a6b0",
  "instance_type": "m1.small",
  "ssh_username": "ubuntu",

  "account_id": "0123-4567-0890",
  "s3_bucket": "packer-images",
  "x509_cert_path": "x509.cert",
  "x509_key_path": "x509.key",
  "x509_upload_path": "/tmp",

  "ami_name": "packer-quick-start {{timestamp}}"
}

-> Note: Packer can also read the access key and secret access key from environmental variables. See the configuration reference in the section above for more information on what environmental variables Packer will look for.

Accessing the Instance to Debug

If you need to access the instance to debug for some reason, run this builder with the -debug flag. In debug mode, the Amazon builder will save the private key in the current directory and will output the DNS or IP information as well. You can use this information to access the instance as it is running.

Build template data

In configuration directives marked as a template engine above, the following variables are available:

BuildRegion - The region (for example eu-central-1) where Packer is building the AMI.
SourceAMI - The source AMI ID (for example ami-a2412fcd) used to build the AMI.
SourceAMICreationDate - The source AMI creation date (for example "2020-05-14T19:26:34.000Z").
SourceAMIName - The source AMI Name (for example ubuntu/images/ebs-ssd/ubuntu-xenial-16.04-amd64-server-20180306) used to build the AMI.
SourceAMIOwner - The source AMI owner ID.
SourceAMIOwnerName - The source AMI owner alias/name (for example amazon).
SourceAMITags - The source AMI Tags, as a map[string]string object.

Build Shared Information Variables

This builder generates data that are shared with provisioner and post-processor via build function of template engine for JSON and contextual variables for HCL2.

The generated variables available for this builder are:

BuildRegion - The region (for example eu-central-1) where Packer is building the AMI.
SourceAMI - The source AMI ID (for example ami-a2412fcd) used to build the AMI.
SourceAMICreationDate - The source AMI creation date (for example "2020-05-14T19:26:34.000Z").
SourceAMIName - The source AMI Name (for example ubuntu/images/ebs-ssd/ubuntu-xenial-16.04-amd64-server-20180306) used to build the AMI.
SourceAMIOwner - The source AMI owner ID.
SourceAMIOwnerName - The source AMI owner alias/name (for example amazon).

Usage example:

// When accessing one of these variables from inside the builder, you need to
// use the golang templating syntax. This is due to an architectural quirk that
// won't be easily resolvable until legacy json templates are deprecated:

{
source "amazon-ebs" "basic-example" {
  tags = {
        OS_Version = "Ubuntu"
        Release = "Latest"
        Base_AMI_ID = "{{ .SourceAMI }}"
        Base_AMI_Name = "{{ .SourceAMIName }}"
    }
}

// when accessing one of the variables from a provisioner or post-processor, use
// hcl-syntax
post-processor "manifest" {
    output = "manifest.json"
    strip_path = true
    custom_data = {
        source_ami_name = "${build.SourceAMIName}"
    }
}

"post-processors": [
  {
    "type": "manifest",
    "output": "manifest.json",
    "strip_path": true,
    "custom_data": {
      "source_ami_name": "{{ build `SourceAMIName` }}"
    }
  }
]

Custom Bundle Commands

A lot of the process required for creating an instance-store backed AMI involves commands being run on the actual source instance. Specifically, the ec2-bundle-vol and ec2-upload-bundle commands must be used to bundle the root filesystem and upload it, respectively.

Each of these commands have a lot of available flags. Instead of exposing each possible flag as a template configuration option, the instance-store AMI builder for Packer lets you customize the entire command used to bundle and upload the AMI.

These are configured with bundle_vol_command and bundle_upload_command. Both of these configurations are configuration templates and have support for their own set of template variables.

Bundle Volume Command

The default value for bundle_vol_command is shown below. It is split across multiple lines for convenience of reading. The bundle volume command is responsible for executing ec2-bundle-vol in order to store and image of the root filesystem to use to create the AMI.

$ sudo -i -n ec2-bundle-vol \
  -k {{.KeyPath}}  \
  -u {{.AccountId}} \
  -c {{.CertPath}} \
  -r {{.Architecture}} \
  -e {{.PrivatePath}}/* \
  -d {{.Destination}} \
  -p {{.Prefix}} \
  --batch \
  --no-filter

The available template variables should be self-explanatory based on the parameters they're used to satisfy the ec2-bundle-vol command.

~> Warning! Some versions of ec2-bundle-vol silently ignore all .pem and .gpg files during the bundling of the AMI, which can cause problems on some systems, such as Ubuntu. You may want to customize the bundle volume command to include those files (see the --no-filter option of ec2-bundle-vol).

Bundle Upload Command

The default value for bundle_upload_command is shown below. It is split across multiple lines for convenience of reading. Access key and secret key are omitted if using instance profile. The bundle upload command is responsible for taking the bundled volume and uploading it to S3.

$ sudo -i -n ec2-upload-bundle \
  -b {{.BucketName}} \
  -m {{.ManifestPath}} \
  -a {{.AccessKey}} \
  -s {{.SecretKey}} \
  -d {{.BundleDirectory}} \
  --batch \
  --region {{.Region}} \
  --retry

The available template variables should be self-explanatory based on the parameters they're used to satisfy the ec2-upload-bundle command. Additionally, {{.Token}} is available when overriding this command. You must create your own bundle command with the addition of -t {{.Token}} if you are assuming a role.

Bundle Upload Permissions

The ec2-upload-bundle requires a policy document that looks something like this:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:PutObject",
        "s3:GetObject",
        "s3:ListBucket",
        "s3:GetBucketLocation",
        "s3:PutObjectAcl"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

You may wish to constrain the resource to a specific bucket.

@include 'builders/aws-ssh-differentiation-table.mdx'

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AMI Builder (instance-store)

Configuration Reference

Required:

Optional:

AMI Configuration

Required:

Optional:

Access Configuration

Required:

Optional:

Assume Role Configuration

Polling Configuration

Run Configuration

Required:

Optional:

Block Devices Configuration

Optional:

Communicator Configuration

Optional:

Basic Example

Accessing the Instance to Debug

Build template data

Build Shared Information Variables

Custom Bundle Commands

Bundle Volume Command

Bundle Upload Command

Bundle Upload Permissions

FilesExpand file tree

instance.mdx

Latest commit

History

instance.mdx

File metadata and controls

AMI Builder (instance-store)

Configuration Reference

Required:

Optional:

AMI Configuration

Required:

Optional:

Access Configuration

Required:

Optional:

Assume Role Configuration

Polling Configuration

Run Configuration

Required:

Optional:

Block Devices Configuration

Optional:

Communicator Configuration

Optional:

Basic Example

Accessing the Instance to Debug

Build template data

Build Shared Information Variables

Custom Bundle Commands

Bundle Volume Command

Bundle Upload Command

Bundle Upload Permissions