Adding Packer Plugins

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Adding Packer Plugins

HashiCorp Packer allows users to create identical, cross-platform machine images by writing templates that leverage our existing infrastructure tools; however, Packer doesn't always offers native support for everything we require. In this hands-on lab, we'll prepare our desired Packer setup by installing some Packer plugins.

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Lab Info

Level

Beginner

Last updated

Sep 05, 2025

Duration

15m

Challenge

Add the Windows Update Plugin

Locate the appropriate binary from the plugin repository and download it:

wget https://github.com/rgl/packer-provisioner-windows-update/releases/download/v0.9.0/packer-provisioner-windows-update-linux.tgz

Expand the file:

tar zxvf packer-provisioner-windows-update-linux.tgz

Make binary executable:

chmod +x packer-provisioner-windows-update

Create the necessary plugins directory:
```
mkdir -p ~/.packer.d/plugins
```

Move the binary:

mv packer-provisioner-windows-update ~/.packer.d/plugins/

Challenge

Add ARM Builder Dependencies

The ARM Builder plugin is a Go module; install a version of Go newer than 1.11.0:

wget https://go.dev/dl/go1.18.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz

sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.18.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin

Install the other module dependencies:

sudo apt install kpartx qemu-user-static

Challenge

Add the ARM Builder Plugin

Pull down the repository:

git clone https://github.com/solo-io/packer-builder-arm-image.git

cd packer-builder-arm-image

Build the module:
```
go mod download
```
```
go build
```

Move the resulting binary:

mv packer-plugin-arm-image ~/.packer.d/plugins/

Clean up your home directory when finished:
```
cd
```
```
rm -rf packer*
```
```
sudo rm -rf go*
```

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