How to use the open source tool Packer to easily create custom images

The content of this article is about how to use the open source tool Packer to easily create a custom image. It has certain reference value. Friends in need can refer to it. I hope it will be helpful to you.

Use Packer to create custom images

The open source tool Packer can easily create custom images. It runs on most major operating systems. Refer to this article to install and use Packer to easily create custom images.

Note

The description in this article only applies to servers running Linux operating systems.

1. Install Packer

You can enter the Packer official website download page, choose to download the version corresponding to your operating system, refer to the following steps or Visit the official Packer installation instructions to install Packer.

Connect and log in to the Linux server. If your server is an ECS Linux instance, please refer to the documentation for using username and password authentication to connect to the Linux instance.

Execute the command cd /usr/local/bin to enter the /usr/local/bin directory.

Description

/usr/local/bin directory is the environment variable directory. You can install Packer to this directory or other directories that have been added to the environment variables.

Execute the command wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/packer/1.1.1/packer_1.1.1_linux_amd64.zip to obtain the Packer installation package. You can visit the Packer download page to obtain other versions of Packer installation packages.

Execute the command unzip packer_1.1.1_linux_amd64.zip to decompress the file.

Execute the command packer -v to verify the Packer installation status. If the Linux server returns the Packer version number, it means that you have installed Packer correctly. If the Linux server prompts command not found, it means that Packer is not installed correctly.

2. Define Packer template

Description

When using Packer to create a custom image, you need to create a JSON format Template file. In the template file, you need to specify the Alicloud Image Builder and Provisioners to create the custom image. Packer has a variety of configurators that can be used to configure the content generation method of custom images. The following uses the commonly used Shell configurator as an example to define a Packer template.

Create a json file named alicloud in the Linux server and paste the following content.

{
     "variables": {
       "access_key": "{{env `ALICLOUD_ACCESS_KEY`}}",
       "secret_key": "{{env `ALICLOUD_SECRET_KEY`}}"
     },
     "builders": [{
       "type":"alicloud-ecs",
       "access_key":"{{user `access_key`}}",
       "secret_key":"{{user `secret_key`}}",
       "region":"cn-beijing",
       "image_name":"packer_basic",
       "source_image":"centos_7_02_64_20G_alibase_20170818.vhd",
       "ssh_username":"root",
       "instance_type":"ecs.n1.tiny",
       "internet_charge_type":"PayByTraffic",
       "io_optimized":"true"
     }],
     "provisioners": [{
       "type": "shell",
       "inline": [
         "sleep 30",
         "yum install redis.x86_64 -y"
       ]
     }]
   }

Description

You need to customize the following parameter values.

3. Use Packer to create a custom image

Specify the Packer template file to generate a custom image:

Import your AccessKeyID: Run export ALICLOUD_ACCESS_KEY=your AccessKeyID.

Import your AccessKeySecret: Run export ALICLOUD_SECRET_KEY=your AccessKeySecret.

Execute the command packer build alicloud.json to create a custom image.

The sample running results are as follows. The following example will create a custom image containing Redis:

alicloud-ecs output will be in this color.
==> alicloud-ecs: Prevalidating alicloud image name...
alicloud-ecs: Found image ID: centos_7_02_64_20G_alibase_20170818.vhd
==> alicloud-ecs: Start creating temporary keypair: packer_59e44f40-c8d6-0ee3-7fd8-b1ba08ea94b8
==> alicloud-ecs: Start creating alicloud vpc
---------------------------
==> alicloud-ecs: Provisioning with shell script: /var/folders/3q/w38xx_js6cl6k5mwkrqsnw7w0000gn/T/packer-shell257466182
alicloud-ecs: Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
---------------------------
alicloud-ecs: Total                                              1.3 MB/s | 650 kB 00:00
alicloud-ecs: Running transaction check
---------------------------
==> alicloud-ecs: Deleting temporary keypair...
Build 'alicloud-ecs' finished.
==> Builds finished. The artifacts of successful builds are:
--> alicloud-ecs: Alicloud images were created:
cn-beijing: m-2ze12578be1oa4ovs6r9

Next step

Use Custom image creation example

The above is the detailed content of How to use the open source tool Packer to easily create custom images. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!