--- description: | Packer Plugins allow new functionality to be added to Packer without modifying the core source code. Packer plugins are able to add new builders, provisioners, hooks, and more. page_title: Plugins sidebar_title: Packer Plugins --- # Packer Plugins Packer Plugins allow new functionality to be added to Packer without modifying the core source code. Packer plugins are able to add new components to Packer, such as builders, provisioners, post-processors, and data sources. This page documents how to install plugins. If you're interested in developing plugins, see the [developing plugins](/docs/plugins/creation#developing-plugins) page. The current official listing of community-written plugins can be found [here](/community-tools#third-party-plugins); if you have written a Packer plugin, please reach out to us so we can add your plugin to the website. ## How Plugins Work Packer plugins are completely separate, standalone applications that the core of Packer starts and communicates with. Even the components that ship with the Packer core (core builders, provisioners, and post-processors) are implemented in a similar way and run as though they are standalone plugins. These plugin applications aren't meant to be run manually. Instead, Packer core launches and communicates with them. The next time you run a Packer build, look at your process list and you should see a handful of `packer-` prefixed applications running. One of those applications is the core; the rest are plugins -- one plugin process is launched for each component used in a Packer build. ## Tiers and Namespaces Packer plugins are published and maintained by a variety of sources, including HashiCorp, and the Packer community. The Packer website uses tiers and badges to denote the source of a provider. Additionally, namespaces are used to help users identify the organization or publisher responsible for the integration, as shown in the table below. | Tier | Description | Namespace | | ---------| ------------| ----------| | |Official plugins are owned and maintained by HashiCorp. | hashicorp | | | Community providers are published by individual maintainers, groups of maintainers, or other members of the Packer community.| Third-party organization or maintainer's individual account | ## Installing Plugins Currently, you do not need to install plugins for builder, provisioner, or post-processor components documented on the Packer website; these components ship with the Packer core and Packer automatically knows how to find and launch them. These instructions are for installing custom components that are not bundled with the Packer core. The below tabs reference "multi-component" and "single-component" plugins. If you are not sure what kind of plugin you are trying to install, the easiest way to find out is to check the name. If the name starts with `packer-plugin-`, then it is a multi-component plugin. If the name starts with a prefix that actually says the component type (e.g. `packer-provisioner-` or `packer-builder`), then it is a single-component plugin. ~> **Note**: Only _multi-component plugin binaries_ -- that is plugins named packer-plugin-*, like the `packer-plugin-amazon` -- are expected to work with Packer init. The legacy `builder`, `post-processor` and `provisioner` plugin types will keep on being detected but Packer cannot install them automatically. If a plugin you use has not been upgraded to use the multi-component plugin architecture, contact your maintainer to request an upgrade. ### Create a required_plugins block 1. Add a [`required_plugins`](/docs/templates/hcl_templates/blocks/packer#specifying-plugin-requirements) block to your [packer block](/docs/templates/hcl_templates/blocks/packer). Each block will tell Packer what version(s) of a particular plugin can be installed. Make sure to set a valid [version constraint string](/docs/templates/hcl_templates/blocks/packer#version-constraints). Here is an example `required_plugins` block: ```hcl packer { required_plugins { myawesomecloud = { version = ">= 2.7.0" source = "github.com/azr/myawesomecloud" } happycloud = { version = ">= 1.1.3" source = "github.com/azr/happycloud" } } } ``` 2. Run [`packer init`](/docs/commands/init) from your project directory (the directory containing your Packer templates) to install all missing plugin binaries. Given the above example, Packer will try to look for a GitHub repository owned by user or organization `azr` named `packer-plugin-myawesomecloud` and `packer-plugin-happycloud`. ## Names and Addresses Each plugin has two identifiers: * A `source` address, which is only necessary when requiring a plugin outside the HashiCorp domain. * A unique **local name**, which is used everywhere else in a Packer configuration. ### Local Names Local names allow you to access the components of a plugin and must be unique per configuration. This is best explained using an example. In the above `required_plugins` block, we declared the local name "myawesomecloud" for the plugin `azr/myawesomecloud`. If the "myawesomecloud" plugin contains both an "ebs" builder and an "import" post-processor, then the builder will be accessed in a source block by using: ```hcl source "myawesomecloud-ebs" "example" { // builder configuration... } ``` similarly, the import post-processor would be accessed by declaring the post-processor block: ```hcl post-processor "myawesomecloud-import" { // post-processor configuration... } ``` If we change the required_plugins block to use a different local name "foo": ```hcl required_plugins { foo = { version = ">= 2.7.0" source = "github.com/azr/myawesomecloud" } } ``` Then we'd instead access that builder using the source: ```hcl source "foo-ebs" "example" { // builder configuration... } ``` ## Source Addresses A plugin's source address is its global identifier. It also tells Packer where to download it. Source addresses consist of three parts delimited by slashes (`/`), as follows: `//` * **Hostname:** The hostname of the location/service that distributes the plugin. Currently, the only valid "hostname" is github.com, but we plan to eventually support plugins downloaded from other domains. * **Namespace:** An organizational namespace within the specified host. This often is the organization that publishes the plugin. * **Type:** A short name for the platform or system the plugin manages. The type is usually the plugin's preferred local name. For example, the fictional `myawesomecloud` plugin could belong to the `hashicorp` namespace on `github.com`, so its `source` could be `github.com/hashicorp/myawesomecloud`, Note: the actual _repository_ that myawesomecloud comes from must always have the name format `github.com/hashicorp/packer-plugin-myawesomecloud`, but the `required_plugins` block omits the redundant `packer-plugin-` repository prefix for brevity. The source address with all three components given explicitly is called the plugin's _fully-qualified address_. You will see fully-qualified address in various outputs, like error messages. ## Plugin location @include "plugins/plugin-location.mdx" ## Implicit Github urls Using the following example : ```hcl required_plugins { happycloud = { version = ">= 2.7.0" source = "github.com/azr/happycloud" } } ``` The plugin getter will look for plugins located at: * github.com/azr/packer-plugin-happycloud Packer will error if you set the `packer-plugin-` prefix in a `source`. This will avoid conflicting with other plugins for other tools, like Terraform. The easiest way to manually install a plugin is to name it correctly, then place it in the proper directory. To name a plugin correctly, make sure the binary is named `packer-plugin-NAME`. For example, `packer-plugin-amazon` for a "plugin" binary named "amazon". This binary will make one or more components available to use. Valid types for plugins are down this page. Once the plugin is named properly, Packer automatically discovers plugins in the following directories in the given order. If a conflicting plugin is found later, it will take precedence over one found earlier. 1. The directory where `packer` is, or the executable directory. 2. The `$HOME/.packer.d/plugins` directory, if `$HOME` is defined (unix) 3. The `%APPDATA%/packer.d/plugins` if `%APPDATA%` is defined (windows) 4. The `%USERPROFILE%/packer.d/plugins` if `%USERPROFILE%` is defined (windows) 5. The current working directory. 6. The directory defined in the env var `PACKER_PLUGIN_PATH`. There can be more than one directory defined; for example, `~/custom-dir-1:~/custom-dir-2`. Separate directories in the PATH string using a colon (`:`) on posix systems and a semicolon (`;`) on windows systems. The above example path would be able to find a provisioner named `packer-provisioner-foo` in either `~/custom-dir-1/packer-provisioner-foo` or `~/custom-dir-2/packer-provisioner-foo`. The valid types for plugins are: - `plugin` - A plugin binary that can contain one or more of each Packer component type. - `builder` - Plugins responsible for building images for a specific platform. - `post-processor` - A post-processor responsible for taking an artifact from a builder and turning it into something else. - `provisioner` - A provisioner to install software on images created by a builder. The easiest way to manually install a plugin is to name it correctly, then place it in the proper directory. To name a plugin correctly, make sure the binary is named `packer-COMPONENT-NAME`. For example, `packer-provisioner-comment` for a "plugin" binary named "comment". This binary will make a single provisioner named `comment` available to use. Valid types for plugins are down this page. Once the plugin is named properly, Packer automatically discovers plugins in the following directories in the given order. If a conflicting plugin is found later, it will take precedence over one found earlier. 1. The directory where `packer` is, or the executable directory. 2. The `$HOME/.packer.d/plugins` directory, if `$HOME` is defined (unix) 3. The `%APPDATA%/packer.d/plugins` if `%APPDATA%` is defined (windows) 4. The `%USERPROFILE%/packer.d/plugins` if `%USERPROFILE%` is defined (windows) 5. The current working directory. 6. The directory defined in the env var `PACKER_PLUGIN_PATH`. There can be more than one directory defined; for example, `~/custom-dir-1:~/custom-dir-2`. Separate directories in the PATH string using a colon (`:`) on posix systems and a semicolon (`;`) on windows systems. The above example path would be able to find a provisioner named `packer-provisioner-foo` in either `~/custom-dir-1/packer-provisioner-foo` or `~/custom-dir-2/packer-provisioner-foo`. The valid types for plugins are: - `plugin` - A plugin binary that can contain one or more of each Packer component type. - `builder` - Plugins responsible for building images for a specific platform. - `post-processor` - A post-processor responsible for taking an artifact from a builder and turning it into something else. - `provisioner` - A provisioner to install software on images created by a builder.