--- description: | The amazon-instance Packer builder is able to create Amazon AMIs backed by instance storage as the root device. For more information on the difference between instance storage and EBS-backed instances, see the storage for the root device section in the EC2 documentation. layout: docs page_title: 'Amazon instance-store - Builders' sidebar_current: 'docs-builders-amazon-instance' --- # AMI Builder (instance-store) Type: `amazon-instance` The `amazon-instance` Packer builder is able to create Amazon AMIs backed by instance storage as the root device. For more information on the difference between instance storage and EBS-backed instances, see the ["storage for the root device" section in the EC2 documentation](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ComponentsAMIs.html#storage-for-the-root-device). This builder builds an AMI by launching an EC2 instance from an existing instance-storage backed AMI, provisioning that running machine, and then bundling and creating a new AMI from that machine. This is all done in your own AWS account. This builder will create temporary key pairs, security group rules, etc. that provide it temporary access to the instance while the image is being created. This simplifies configuration quite a bit. This builder does *not* manage AMIs. Once it creates an AMI and stores it in your account, it is up to you to use, delete, etc. the AMI. -> **Note:** Temporary resources are, by default, all created with the prefix `packer`. This can be useful if you want to restrict the security groups and key pairs packer is able to operate on. -> **Note:** This builder requires that the [Amazon EC2 AMI Tools](https://aws.amazon.com/developertools/368) are installed onto the machine. This can be done within a provisioner, but must be done before the builder finishes running. \~> Instance builds are not supported for Windows. Use [`amazon-ebs`](amazon-ebs.html) instead. ## Configuration Reference There are many configuration options available for the builder. In addition to the items listed here, you will want to look at the general configuration references for [AMI](#ami-configuration), [BlockDevices](#block-devices-configuration), [Access](#access-configuration), [Run](#run-configuration) and [Communicator](#communicator-configuration) configuration references, which are necessary for this build to succeed and can be found further down the page. ### Required: <%= partial "partials/builder/amazon/instance/Config-required" %> ### Optional: <%= partial "partials/builder/amazon/instance/Config-not-required" %> ### AMI Configuration #### Required: <%= partial "partials/builder/amazon/common/AMIConfig-required" %> #### Optional: <%= partial "partials/builder/amazon/common/AMIConfig-not-required" %> ### Access Configuration #### Required: <%= partial "partials/builder/amazon/common/AccessConfig-required" %> #### Optional: <%= partial "partials/builder/amazon/common/AccessConfig-not-required" %> ### Run Configuration #### Required: <%= partial "partials/builder/amazon/common/RunConfig-required" %> #### Optional: <%= partial "partials/builder/amazon/common/RunConfig-not-required" %> ### Block Devices Configuration Block devices can be nested in the [ami_block_device_mappings](#ami_block_device_mappings) or the [launch_block_device_mappings](#launch_block_device_mappings) array. <%= partial "partials/builder/amazon/common/BlockDevice" %> #### Optional: <%= partial "partials/builder/amazon/common/BlockDevice-not-required" %> ### Communicator Configuration #### Optional: <%= partial "partials/helper/communicator/Config-not-required" %> <%= partial "partials/helper/communicator/SSH-not-required" %> <%= partial "partials/helper/communicator/SSHInterface-not-required" %> ## Basic Example Here is a basic example. It is completely valid except for the access keys: ``` json { "type": "amazon-instance", "access_key": "YOUR KEY HERE", "secret_key": "YOUR SECRET KEY HERE", "region": "us-east-1", "source_ami": "ami-d9d6a6b0", "instance_type": "m1.small", "ssh_username": "ubuntu", "account_id": "0123-4567-0890", "s3_bucket": "packer-images", "x509_cert_path": "x509.cert", "x509_key_path": "x509.key", "x509_upload_path": "/tmp", "ami_name": "packer-quick-start {{timestamp}}" } ``` -> **Note:** Packer can also read the access key and secret access key from environmental variables. See the configuration reference in the section above for more information on what environmental variables Packer will look for. ## Accessing the Instance to Debug If you need to access the instance to debug for some reason, run this builder with the `-debug` flag. In debug mode, the Amazon builder will save the private key in the current directory and will output the DNS or IP information as well. You can use this information to access the instance as it is running. ## Build template data In configuration directives marked as a template engine above, the following variables are available: - `BuildRegion` - The region (for example `eu-central-1`) where Packer is building the AMI. - `SourceAMI` - The source AMI ID (for example `ami-a2412fcd`) used to build the AMI. - `SourceAMIName` - The source AMI Name (for example `ubuntu/images/ebs-ssd/ubuntu-xenial-16.04-amd64-server-20180306`) used to build the AMI. - `SourceAMITags` - The source AMI Tags, as a `map[string]string` object. ## Custom Bundle Commands A lot of the process required for creating an instance-store backed AMI involves commands being run on the actual source instance. Specifically, the `ec2-bundle-vol` and `ec2-upload-bundle` commands must be used to bundle the root filesystem and upload it, respectively. Each of these commands have a lot of available flags. Instead of exposing each possible flag as a template configuration option, the instance-store AMI builder for Packer lets you customize the entire command used to bundle and upload the AMI. These are configured with `bundle_vol_command` and `bundle_upload_command`. Both of these configurations are [configuration templates](/docs/templates/engine.html) and have support for their own set of template variables. ### Bundle Volume Command The default value for `bundle_vol_command` is shown below. It is split across multiple lines for convenience of reading. The bundle volume command is responsible for executing `ec2-bundle-vol` in order to store and image of the root filesystem to use to create the AMI. ``` text sudo -i -n ec2-bundle-vol \ -k {{.KeyPath}} \ -u {{.AccountId}} \ -c {{.CertPath}} \ -r {{.Architecture}} \ -e {{.PrivatePath}}/* \ -d {{.Destination}} \ -p {{.Prefix}} \ --batch \ --no-filter ``` The available template variables should be self-explanatory based on the parameters they're used to satisfy the `ec2-bundle-vol` command. \~> **Warning!** Some versions of ec2-bundle-vol silently ignore all .pem and .gpg files during the bundling of the AMI, which can cause problems on some systems, such as Ubuntu. You may want to customize the bundle volume command to include those files (see the `--no-filter` option of `ec2-bundle-vol`). ### Bundle Upload Command The default value for `bundle_upload_command` is shown below. It is split across multiple lines for convenience of reading. Access key and secret key are omitted if using instance profile. The bundle upload command is responsible for taking the bundled volume and uploading it to S3. ``` text sudo -i -n ec2-upload-bundle \ -b {{.BucketName}} \ -m {{.ManifestPath}} \ -a {{.AccessKey}} \ -s {{.SecretKey}} \ -d {{.BundleDirectory}} \ --batch \ --region {{.Region}} \ --retry ``` The available template variables should be self-explanatory based on the parameters they're used to satisfy the `ec2-upload-bundle` command. Additionally, `{{.Token}}` is available when overriding this command. You must create your own bundle command with the addition of `-t {{.Token}}` if you are assuming a role. #### Bundle Upload Permissions The `ec2-upload-bundle` requires a policy document that looks something like this: ``` json { "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "s3:PutObject", "s3:GetObject", "s3:ListBucket", "s3:GetBucketLocation", "s3:PutObjectAcl" ], "Resource": "*" } ] } ``` You may wish to constrain the resource to a specific bucket. <%= partial "partials/builders/aws-ssh-differentiation-table" %>