Lab
A Cloud Guru

Formatting a Packer Template in HCL2

Packer allows us to create templates for generating cross-platform machine images, and HashiCorp provides its own configuration language for this task. In this lab, we'll test our HCL2 skills by fixing and otherwise neaten up an inaccurately written HCL2 Packer template. Just want to test your HCL2 reviewing skills? No Packer knowledge is needed to take this lab.

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Path Info

Level

Beginner

Duration

30m

Published

Oct 02, 2020

Challenge

Fix Whitespace

Open the provided template:
```
cd packer
```
```
vim ami-test.pkr.hcl
```

To make viewing the template easier, let's neaten up the template by adjusting the tabs/whitespace:

source "amazon-ebs" "ubuntu-ami-test": {
    access_key = "",
    secret_key = "",
    security_group_ids = [""],
    subnet_id = "",
    region = "us-east-1",
    ami_name = "ubuntu-ami-test_{{timestamp}}",
    instance_type = "t2.micro",
    source_ami = "ami-068663a3c619dd892",
    communicator = "ssh",
    ssh_username = "ubuntu"
}

build {
    sources = [ "source.amazon-ebs.ubuntu-ami-test" ]

    provisioner "shell" [
        script = "init.sh"
    ]
}

Challenge

Adjust Structural Errors

Update the template to remove the unnecessary colon (:) in the initial source block. The provisioner block also needs to be updated to work as an object not an array:

source "amazon-ebs" "ubuntu-ami-test" {
    access_key = "",
    secret_key = "",
    security_group_ids = [""],
    subnet_id = "",
    region = "us-east-1",
    ami_name = "ubuntu-ami-test_{{timestamp}}",
    instance_type = "t2.micro",
    source_ami = "ami-068663a3c619dd892",
    communicator = "ssh",
    ssh_username = "ubuntu"
}

build {
    sources = [ "source.amazon-ebs.ubuntu-ami-test" ]

    provisioner "shell" {
        script = "init.sh"
    }
}

Finally, remove any commas:

source "amazon-ebs" "ubuntu-ami-test" {
    access_key = ""
    secret_key = ""
    security_group_ids = [""]
    subnet_id = ""
    region = "us-east-1"
    ami_name = "ubuntu-ami-test_{{timestamp}}"
    instance_type = "t2.micro"
    source_ami = "ami-068663a3c619dd892"
    communicator = "ssh"
    ssh_username = "ubuntu"
}

build {
    sources = [ "source.amazon-ebs.ubuntu-ami-test" ]

    provisioner "shell" {
        script = "init.sh"
    }
}

Challenge

Run the Build
1. Using the credentials on the hands-on lab page, update the variables to use the provided access key, secret key, subnet ID, and security group.
2. Save and exit the file.
3. Run the build:
```
packer build .
```

Author

A Cloud Guru

The Cloud Content team comprises subject matter experts hyper focused on services offered by the leading cloud vendors (AWS, GCP, and Azure), as well as cloud-related technologies such as Linux and DevOps. The team is thrilled to share their knowledge to help you build modern tech solutions from the ground up, secure and optimize your environments, and so much more!

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