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---
layout: "intro"
page_title: "Build an Image"
prev_url: "/intro/getting-started/setup.html"
next_url: "/intro/getting-started/provision.html"
next_title: "Provision"
---
# Build an Image
With Packer installed, let's just dive right into it and build our first
image. Our first image will be an [Amazon EC2 AMI](http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/)
with Redis pre-installed. This is just an example. Packer can create images
for [many platforms](/intro/platforms.html) with anything pre-installed.
If you don't have an AWS account, [create one now](http://aws.amazon.com/free/).
For the example, we'll use a "t1.micro" instance to build our image, which
qualifies under the AWS [free-tier](http://aws.amazon.com/free/), meaning
it will be free. If you already have an AWS account, you may be charged some
amount of money, but it shouldn't be more than a few cents.
<div class="alert alert-block alert-warn">
<strong>Note</strong> that if you're not using an account that qualifies under
the AWS <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/free/">free-tier</a>, you may be
charged to run these examples. The charge should only be a few cents, but
we're not responsible if it ends up being more.
</div>
Packer can build images for [many platforms](/intro/platforms.html) other than
AWS, but AWS requires no additional software installed on your computer and
their [free-tier](http://aws.amazon.com/free/) makes it free to use for most
people. This is why we chose to use AWS for the example. If you're uncomfortable
setting up an AWS account, feel free to follow along as the basic principles
apply to the other platforms as well.
## The Template
The configuration file used to define what image we want built and how
is called a _template_ in Packer terminology. The format of a template
is simple [JSON](http://www.json.org/). JSON struck the best balance between
human-editable and machine-editable, allowing both hand-made templates as well
as machine generated templates to easily be made.
We'll start by creating the entire template, then we'll go over each section
briefly. Create a file `example.json` and fill it with the following contents:
<pre class="prettyprint">
{
"builders": [{
"type": "amazon-ebs",
"access_key": "YOUR KEY HERE",
"secret_key": "YOUR SECRET KEY HERE",
"region": "us-east-1",
"source_ami": "ami-de0d9eb7",
"instance_type": "t1.micro",
"ssh_username": "ubuntu",
"ami_name": "packer-example {{.CreateTime}}"
}]
}
</pre>
Please fill in the `access_key` and `secret_key` with the proper values
for your account. Your security credentials can be found on
[this page](https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/home?#security_credential).
This is a basic template that is ready-to-go. It should be immediately recognizable
as a normal, basic JSON object. Within the object, the `builders` section
contains an array of JSON objects configuring a specific _builder_. A
builder is a component of Packer that is responsible for creating a machine
and turning that machine into an image.
In this case, we're only configuring a single builder of type `amazon-ebs`.
This is the Amazon EC2 AMI builder that ships with Packer. This builder
builds an EBS-backed AMI by launching a source AMI, provisioning on top of
that, and re-packaging it into a new AMI.
The additional keys within the object are configuration for this builder, specifying things
such as access keys, the source AMI to build from, and more.
The exact set of configuration variables available for a builder are
specific to each builder and can be found within the [documentation](/docs).
Before we take this template and build an image from it, let's validate the template
by running `packer validate example.json`. This command checks the syntax
as well as the configuration values to verify they look valid. The output should
look similar to below, because the template should be valid. If there are
any errors, this command will tell you.
```
$ packer validate example.json
Template validated successfully.
```
Next, let's build the image from this template.
An astute reader may notice that we said earlier we'd be building an
image with Redis pre-installed, and yet the template we made doesn't reference
Redis anywhere. In fact, this part of the documentation will only cover making
a first basic, non-provisioned image. The next section on provisioning will
cover installing Redis.
## Your First Image
With a properly validated template. It is time to build your first image.
This is done by calling `packer build` with the template file. The output
should look similar to below. Note that this process typically takes a
few minutes.
```
$ packer build example.json
==> amazon-ebs: amazon-ebs output will be in this color.
==> amazon-ebs: Creating temporary keypair for this instance...
==> amazon-ebs: Creating temporary security group for this instance...
==> amazon-ebs: Authorizing SSH access on the temporary security group...
==> amazon-ebs: Launching a source AWS instance...
==> amazon-ebs: Waiting for instance to become ready...
==> amazon-ebs: Connecting to the instance via SSH...
==> amazon-ebs: Stopping the source instance...
==> amazon-ebs: Waiting for the instance to stop...
==> amazon-ebs: Creating the AMI: packer-example 1371856345
==> amazon-ebs: AMI: ami-19601070
==> amazon-ebs: Waiting for AMI to become ready...
==> amazon-ebs: Terminating the source AWS instance...
==> amazon-ebs: Deleting temporary security group...
==> amazon-ebs: Deleting temporary keypair...
==> amazon-ebs: Build finished.
==> Builds finished. The artifacts of successful builds are:
--> amazon-ebs: AMIs were created:
us-east-1: ami-19601070
```
At the end of running `packer build`, Packer outputs the _artifacts_
that were created as part of the build. Artifacts are the results of a
build, and typically represent an ID (such as in the case of an AMI) or
a set of files (such as for a VMware virtual machine). In this example,
we only have a single artifact: the AMI in us-east-1 that was created.
This AMI is ready to use. If you wanted you can go and launch this AMI
right now and it would work great.
<div class="alert alert-block alert-info">
<strong>Note:</strong> Your AMI ID will surely be different than the
one above. If you try to launch the one in the example output above, you
will get an error. If you want to try to launch your AMI, get the ID from
the Packer output.
</div>
## Managing the Image
Packer only builds images. It does not attempt to manage them in any way.
After they're built, it is up to you to launch or destroy them as you see
fit. As a result of this, after running the above example, your AWS account
now has an AMI associated with it.
AMIs are stored in S3 by Amazon, so unless you want to be charged about $0.01
per month, you'll probably want to remove it. Remove the AMI by
first deregistering it on the [AWS AMI management page](https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/home?region=us-east-1#s=Images).
Next, delete the associated snapshot on the
[AWS snapshot management page](https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/home?region=us-east-1#s=Snapshots).
Congratulations! You've just built your first image with Packer. Although
the image was pretty useless in this case (nothing was changed about it),
this page should've given you a general idea of how Packer works, what
templates are, and how to validate and build templates into machine
images.

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---
layout: "intro"
page_title: "Provision"
prev_url: "/intro/getting-started/build-image.html"
next_url: "/intro/getting-started/parallel-builds.html"
next_title: "Parallel Builds"
---
# Provision
In the previous page of this guide, you created your first image with
Packer. The image you just built, however, was basically just a repackaging
of a previously existing base AMI. The real utility of Packer comes from
being able to install and configure software into the images as well.
This stage is also known as the _provision_ step. Packer fully supports
automated provisioning in order to install software onto the machines prior
to turning them into images.
In this section, we're going to complete our image by installing
Redis on it. This way, the image we end up building actually contains
Redis pre-installed. Although Redis is a small, simple example, this should
give you an idea of what it may be like to install many more packages into
the image.
Historically, pre-baked images have been frowned upon because changing
them has been so tedious and slow. Because Packer is completely automated,
including provisioning, images can be changed quickly and integrated with
modern configuration management tools such as Chef or Puppet.
## Configuring Provisioners
Provisioners are configured as part of the template. We'll use the built-in
shell provisioner that comes with Packer to install Redis. Modify the
`example.json` template we made previously and add the following. We'll
explain the various parts of the new configuration following the code
block below.
<pre class="prettyprint">
{
"builders": [...],
"provisioners": [{
"type": "shell",
"inline": [
"sudo apt-get update",
"sudo apt-get install -y redis-server"
]
}]
}
</pre>
Hopefully it is obvious, but the `builders` section shouldn't actually
contain "...", it should be the contents setup in the previous page
of the getting started guide.
To configure the provisioners, we add a new section `provisioners` to the
template, alongside the `builders` configuration. The provisioners section
is an array of provisioners to run. If multiple provisioners are specified, they
are run in the order given.
By default, each provisioner is run for every builder defined. So if we had
two builders defined in our template, such as both Amazon and DigitalOcean, then
the shell script would run as part of both builds. There are ways to restrict
provisioners to certain builds, but it is outside the scope of this getting
started guide. It is covered in more detail in the complete
[documentation](/docs).
The one provisioner we defined has a type of `shell`. This provisioner
ships with Packer and runs shell scripts on the running machine. In our
case, we specify two inline commands to run in order to install Redis.
## Build
With the provisioner configured, give it a pass once again through
`packer validate` to verify everything is okay, then build it using
`packer build example.json`. The output should look similar to when you
built your first image, except this time there will be a new step where
the provisoning is run.
The output from the provisioner is too verbose to include in this
guide, since it contains all the output from the shell scripts. But you
should see Redis successfully install. After that, Packer once again
turns the machine into an AMI.
If you were to launch this AMI, Redis would be pre-installed. Cool!
This is just a basic example. In a real world use case, you may be provisioning
an image with the entire stack necessary to run your application. Or maybe
just the web stack so that you can have an image for web servers pre-built.
This saves tons of time later as you launch these images since everything
is pre-installed. Additionally, since everything is pre-installed, you
can test the images as they're built and know that when they go into
production, they'll be functional.

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<ul>
<li><h4>Getting Started</h4></li>
<li><a href="/intro/getting-started/setup.html">Install Packer</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Build an Image</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Provision</a></li>
<li><a href="/intro/getting-started/build-image.html">Build an Image</a></li>
<li><a href="/intro/getting-started/provision.html">Provision</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Parallel Builds</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Post-Process</a></li>
</ul>

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