From 9b1f79309baa9426fef4f6e7c59f62874d5edc11 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Mitchell Hashimoto Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 14:02:04 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] website: update terminology --- .../docs/basics/terminology.html.markdown | 18 ++++++++++++------ 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/website/source/docs/basics/terminology.html.markdown b/website/source/docs/basics/terminology.html.markdown index a7d3f0918..d1989e4ca 100644 --- a/website/source/docs/basics/terminology.html.markdown +++ b/website/source/docs/basics/terminology.html.markdown @@ -10,20 +10,20 @@ Luckily, there are relatively few. This page documents all the terminology required to understand and use Packer. The terminology is in alphabetical order for easy referencing. - + **Artifacts** are the results of a single [build](#term-build), and are usually a set of IDs or files to represent a machine image. Every [builder](#term-builder) produces a single artifact. As an example, in the case of the Amazon EC2 builder, the artifact is a set of AMI IDs (one per region). For the VMware builder, the artifact is a directory of files comprising the created virtual machine. - + **Builds** are a single task that eventually produces an image for a single platform. Multiple builds run in parallel. Example usage in a sentence: "The Packer build produced an AMI to run our web application." Or: "Packer is running the builds now for VMware, AWS, and VirtualBox." - + **Builders** are components of Packer that are able to create a machine image for a single platform. Builders read in some configuration and use that to run and generate a machine image. A builder is invoked as part of a [build](#term-build) @@ -31,21 +31,27 @@ in order to create the actual resulting images. Example builders include VirtualBox, VMware, and Amazon EC2. Builders can be created and added to Packer in the form of plugins. - + **Commands** are sub-commands for the `packer` program that perform some job. An example somecommand is "build", which is invoked as `packer build`. Packer ships with a set of commands out of the box in order to define its [command-line interface](#). Commands can also be created and added to Packer in the form of plugins. - + +**Post-processors** are components of Packer that take the result of +a [builder](#term-builder) or another post-processor and process that to +create a new [artifact](#term-artifact). Examples of post-processors are +compress to compress artifacts, upload to upload artifacts, etc. + + **Provisioners** are components of Packer that install and configure software within a running machine prior to that machine being turned into a static image. They perform the major work of making the image contain useful software. Example provisioners include shell scripts, Chef, Puppet, etc. - + **Templates** are JSON files which define one or more [builds](#term-build) by configuring the various components of Packer. Packer is able to read a template and use that information to create multiple machine images in