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Packer Plugins

Plugins allow new functionality to be added to Packer without modifying the core source code. Packer plugins are able to add new commands, builders, provisioners, hooks, and more. In fact, much of Packer itself is implemented by writing plugins that are simply distributed with Packer. For example, all the commands, builders, provisioners, and more that ship with Packer are implemented as Plugins that are simply hardcoded to load with Packer.

This page will cover how to install and use plugins. If you're interested in developing plugins, the documentation for that is available the developing plugins page.

Because Packer is so young, there is no official listing of available Packer plugins. Plugins are best found via Google. Typically, searching "packer plugin x" will find what you're looking for if it exists. As Packer gets older, an official plugin directory is planned.

How Plugins Work

Packer plugins are completely separate, standalone applications that the core of Packer starts and communicates with.

These plugin applications aren't meant to be run manually. Instead, Packer core executes these plugin applications in a certain way and communicates with them. For example, the VMware builder is actually a standalone binary named packer-builder-vmware. The next time you run a Packer build, look at your process list and you should see a handful of packer- prefixed applications running.

Installing Plugins

Plugins are installed by modifying the core Packer configuration. Within the core configuration, each component has a key/value mapping of the plugin name to the actual plugin binary.

For example, if we're adding a new builder for CustomCloud, the core Packer configuration may look like this:

{
  "builders": {
    "custom-cloud": "packer-builder-custom-cloud"
  }
}

In this case, the "custom-cloud" type is the type that is actually used for the value of the "type" configuration key for the builder definition.

The value, "packer-builder-custom-cloud", is the path to the plugin binary. It can be an absolute or relative path. If it is not an absolute path, then the binary is searched for on the PATH. In the example above, Packer will search for packer-builder-custom-cloud on the PATH.

After adding the plugin to the core Packer configuration, it is immediately available on the next run of Packer. To uninstall a plugin, just remove it from the core Packer configuration.

In addition to builders, other types of plugins can be installed. The full list is below:

• builders - A key/value pair of builder type to the builder plugin application.

• commands - A key/value pair of the command name to the command plugin application. The command name is what is executed on the command line, like packer COMMAND.

• provisioners - A key/value pair of the provisioner type to the provisioner plugin application. The provisioner type is the value of the "type" configuration used within templates.