---
layout: guides
sidebar_current: automatic-operating-system-installs
page_title: Automatic OS Installs
description: |-
  Learn how to use preseed, kickstart, and autounattend files to automatically
  answer installation questions and enable Packer to connect to your instnace.
---

# Automatic OS Installs

If you are building from a brand-new and unconfigured operating system
image, Packer will need you to perform the operating system install before it
can connect to and configure your image using its provisioners. Most operating
system distributions have a mechanism for performing the normally-interactive
installation in an automated way. For Debian operating systems, this is done
using a preseed file; for Windows, it's done using an Autounattend.xml. We have
compiled some simple guides here for common operating system distributions.

These guides are meant to give you a quick introduction to how to use automated
installation answer files in order to perfom those installs; we don't mean to
be a comprehensive guide on each operating system, but we hope to give you
enough context to be able to more easily find any further information you need.

Please use the left-hand navigation to find instructions for the operating
system that is relevant to you.