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layout	page_title	description
docs	Ansible Provisioner	The `ansible` Packer provisioner allows Ansible playbooks to be run to provision the machine.

Ansible Provisioner

Type: ansible

The ansible Packer provisioner runs Ansible playbooks. It dynamically creates an Ansible inventory file configured to use SSH, runs an SSH server, executes ansible-playbook, and marshals Ansible plays through the SSH server to the machine being provisioned by Packer. Note, this means that any remote_user defined in tasks will be ignored. Packer will always connect with the user given in the json config.

Basic Example

This is a fully functional template that will provision an image on DigitalOcean. Replace the mock api_token value with your own.

{
  "provisioners": [
    {
      "type": "ansible",
      "playbook_file": "./playbook.yml"
    }
  ],

  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "digitalocean",
      "api_token": "6a561151587389c7cf8faa2d83e94150a4202da0e2bad34dd2bf236018ffaeeb",
      "image": "ubuntu-14-04-x64",
      "region": "sfo1"
    }
  ]
}

Configuration Reference

Required Parameters:

playbook_file - The playbook to be run by Ansible.

Optional Parameters:

command (string) - The command to invoke ansible. Defaults to ansible-playbook.
groups (array of strings) - The groups into which the Ansible host should be placed. When unspecified, the host is not associated with any groups.
empty_groups (array of strings) - The groups which should be present in inventory file but remain empty.
host_alias (string) - The alias by which the Ansible host should be known. Defaults to default.
ssh_host_key_file (string) - The SSH key that will be used to run the SSH server on the host machine to forward commands to the target machine. Ansible connects to this server and will validate the identity of the server using the system known_hosts. The default behavior is to generate and use a onetime key. Host key checking is disabled via the ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING environment variable if the key is generated.
ssh_authorized_key_file (string) - The SSH public key of the Ansible ssh_user. The default behavior is to generate and use a onetime key. If this key is generated, the corresponding private key is passed to ansible-playbook with the --private-key option.
local_port (string) - The port on which to attempt to listen for SSH connections. This value is a starting point. The provisioner will attempt listen for SSH connections on the first available of ten ports, starting at local_port. A system-chosen port is used when local_port is missing or empty.
sftp_command (string) - The command to run on the machine being provisioned by Packer to handle the SFTP protocol that Ansible will use to transfer files. The command should read and write on stdin and stdout, respectively. Defaults to /usr/lib/sftp-server -e.
use_sftp (boolean) - Whether to use SFTP. When false, ANSIBLE_SCP_IF_SSH=True will be automatically added to ansible_env_vars. Defaults to false.
extra_arguments (array of strings) - Extra arguments to pass to Ansible. Usage example:

"extra_arguments": [ "--extra-vars", "Region={{user `Region`}} Stage={{user `Stage`}}" ]

ansible_env_vars (array of strings) - Environment variables to set before running Ansible. Usage example:

"ansible_env_vars": [ "ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING=False", "ANSIBLE_SSH_ARGS='-o ForwardAgent=yes -o ControlMaster=auto -o ControlPersist=60s'", "ANSIBLE_NOCOLOR=True" ]

user (string) - The ansible_user to use. Defaults to the user running packer.

Limitations

Redhat / CentOS

Redhat / CentOS builds have been known to fail with the following error due to sftp_command, which should be set to /usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server -e:

==> virtualbox-ovf: starting sftp subsystem
    virtualbox-ovf: fatal: [default]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg": "SSH Error: data could not be sent to the remote host. Make sure this host can be reached over ssh", "unreachable": true}

chroot communicator

Building within a chroot (e.g. amazon-chroot) requires changing the Ansible connection to chroot.

{
    "builders": [
        {
            "type": "amazon-chroot",
            "mount_path": "/mnt/packer-amazon-chroot",
            "region": "us-east-1",
            "source_ami": "ami-123456"
        }
    ],
    "provisioners": [
        {
            "type": "ansible",
            "extra_arguments": [
                "--connection=chroot",
                "--inventory-file=/mnt/packer-amazon-chroot,"
            ],
            "playbook_file": "main.yml"
        }
    ]
}

winrm communicator

Windows builds require a custom Ansible connection plugin and a particular configuration. Assuming a directory named connection_plugins is next to the playbook and contains a file named packer.py whose contents is

from __future__ import (absolute_import, division, print_function)
__metaclass__ = type

from ansible.plugins.connection.ssh import Connection as SSHConnection

class Connection(SSHConnection):
    ''' ssh based connections for powershell via packer'''

    transport = 'packer'
    has_pipelining = True
    become_methods = []
    allow_executable = False
    module_implementation_preferences = ('.ps1', '')

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(Connection, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

This template should build a Windows Server 2012 image on Google Cloud Platform:

{
    "variables": {},
    "provisioners": [
      {
        "type":  "ansible",
        "playbook_file": "./win-playbook.yml",
        "extra_arguments": [
          "--connection", "packer",
          "--extra-vars", "ansible_shell_type=powershell ansible_shell_executable=None"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "builders": [
      {
        "type": "googlecompute",
        "account_file": "{{user `account_file`}}",
        "project_id": "{{user `project_id`}}",
        "source_image": "windows-server-2012-r2-dc-v20160916",
        "communicator": "winrm",
        "zone": "us-central1-a",
        "disk_size": 50,
        "winrm_username": "packer",
        "winrm_use_ssl": true,
        "winrm_insecure": true,
        "metadata": {
                  "sysprep-specialize-script-cmd": "winrm set winrm/config/service/auth @{Basic=\"true\"}"
        }
      }
    ]
}

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