Provisioning a Packer Image with Masterless Salt

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Provisioning a Packer Image with Masterless Salt

Packer lets us create machine images for a variety of platforms through code. Part of the image creation process involves provisioning the machine, which can be done with a variety of provisioners, including Salt. All Salt provisioning is done via the `salt-call` command, with Salt run masterless. In this lab, we'll use Salt and Packer to ensure our website has a working image by using a custom Salt minion config.

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Lab Info

Level

Intermediate

Last updated

Apr 06, 2025

Duration

30m

Challenge

Prepare the Formula
1. Move to packer/bookapp.
2. Create a formula directory and pull in our desired Apache formula.
3. To use this formula, we need a related top.sls file, place to store our pillar data, and a pillar top.sls file.
4. Create the pillar data. (We can view an example of this on the Apache formula's GitHub page to see usage before writing our own.)
5. Add a related top.sls file for the pillar data.
6. Update the formula top file.
7. Review and update the minion config.
Challenge

Update the Template
1. Update our packer.json file, first by adding our file and pillar roots directories in our shell provisioner block; we also want to create our website directory.
2. Copy over our needed files.
3. Add our Salt provisioner, ensuring to use our custom minion config.
Challenge

Test the Build
1. Update the file with the access key, secret key, and subnet ID provided on the hands-on lab page.
2. Save and exit the file.
3. Test the build.

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