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layout	sidebar_current	page_title	description
docs	docs-builders-amazon-ebssurrogate	Amazon EBS Surrogate - Builders	The amazon-ebssurrogate Packer builder is like the chroot builder, but does not require running inside an EC2 instance.

EBS Surrogate Builder

Type: amazon-ebssurrogate

The amazon-ebssurrogate Packer builder is able to create Amazon AMIs by running a source instance with an attached volume, provisioning the attached volume in such a way that it can be used as the root volume for the AMI, and then snapshotting and creating the AMI from that volume.

This builder can therefore be used to bootstrap scratch-build images - for example FreeBSD or Ubuntu using ZFS as the root file system.

This is all done in your own AWS account. The builder will create temporary key pairs, security group rules, etc. that provide it temporary access to the instance while the image is being created.

Configuration Reference

There are many configuration options available for the builder. They are segmented below into two categories: required and optional parameters. Within each category, the available configuration keys are alphabetized.

In addition to the options listed here, a communicator can be configured for this builder.

Required:

access_key (string) - The access key used to communicate with AWS. Learn how to set this.
instance_type (string) - The EC2 instance type to use while building the AMI, such as m1.small.
region (string) - The name of the region, such as us-east-1, in which to launch the EC2 instance to create the AMI.
secret_key (string) - The secret key used to communicate with AWS. Learn how to set this.
source_ami (string) - The initial AMI used as a base for the newly created machine. source_ami_filter may be used instead to populate this automatically.
ami_root_device (block device mapping) - A block device mapping describing the root device of the AMI. This looks like the mappings in ami_block_device_mapping, except with an additional field:
source_device_name (string) - The device name of the block device on the source instance to be used as the root device for the AMI. This must correspond to a block device in launch_block_device_mapping.

Optional:

ami_block_device_mappings (array of block device mappings) - Add one or more block device mappings to the AMI. These will be attached when booting a new instance from your AMI. To add a block device during the packer build see launch_block_device_mappings below. Your options here may vary depending on the type of VM you use. The block device mappings allow for the following configuration:
- delete_on_termination (boolean) - Indicates whether the EBS volume is deleted on instance termination. Default false. NOTE: If this value is not explicitly set to true and volumes are not cleaned up by an alternative method, additional volumes will accumulate after every build.
- device_name (string) - The device name exposed to the instance (for example, /dev/sdh or xvdh). Required when specifying volume_size.
- encrypted (boolean) - Indicates whether to encrypt the volume or not
- iops (integer) - The number of I/O operations per second (IOPS) that the volume supports. See the documentation on IOPs for more information
- no_device (boolean) - Suppresses the specified device included in the block device mapping of the AMI
- snapshot_id (string) - The ID of the snapshot
- virtual_name (string) - The virtual device name. See the documentation on Block Device Mapping for more information
- volume_size (integer) - The size of the volume, in GiB. Required if not specifying a snapshot_id
- volume_type (string) - The volume type. gp2 for General Purpose (SSD) volumes, io1 for Provisioned IOPS (SSD) volumes, and standard for Magnetic volumes
ami_description (string) - The description to set for the resulting AMI(s). By default this description is empty. This is a template engine where the SourceAMI variable is replaced with the source AMI ID and BuildRegion variable is replaced with the value of region.
ami_groups (array of strings) - A list of groups that have access to launch the resulting AMI(s). By default no groups have permission to launch the AMI. all will make the AMI publicly accessible. AWS currently doesn't accept any value other than all.
ami_product_codes (array of strings) - A list of product codes to associate with the AMI. By default no product codes are associated with the AMI.
ami_regions (array of strings) - A list of regions to copy the AMI to. Tags and attributes are copied along with the AMI. AMI copying takes time depending on the size of the AMI, but will generally take many minutes.
ami_users (array of strings) - A list of account IDs that have access to launch the resulting AMI(s). By default no additional users other than the user creating the AMI has permissions to launch it.
ami_virtualization_type (string) - The type of virtualization for the AMI you are building. This option must match the supported virtualization type of source_ami. Can be paravirtual or hvm.
associate_public_ip_address (boolean) - If using a non-default VPC, public IP addresses are not provided by default. If this is toggled, your new instance will get a Public IP.
availability_zone (string) - Destination availability zone to launch instance in. Leave this empty to allow Amazon to auto-assign.
disable_stop_instance (boolean) - Packer normally stops the build instance after all provisioners have run. For Windows instances, it is sometimes desirable to run Sysprep which will stop the instance for you. If this is set to true, Packer will not stop the instance and will wait for you to stop it manually. You can do this with a windows-shell provisioner.
```
{
  "type": "windows-shell",
  "inline": ["\"c:\\Program Files\\Amazon\\Ec2ConfigService\\ec2config.exe\" -sysprep"]
}
```
ebs_optimized (boolean) - Mark instance as EBS Optimized. Default false.
enhanced_networking (boolean) - Enable enhanced networking (SriovNetSupport) on HVM-compatible AMIs. If true, add ec2:ModifyInstanceAttribute to your AWS IAM policy.
force_deregister (boolean) - Force Packer to first deregister an existing AMI if one with the same name already exists. Default false.
force_delete_snapshot (boolean) - Force Packer to delete snapshots associated with AMIs, which have been deregistered by force_deregister. Default false.
encrypt_boot (boolean) - Instruct packer to automatically create a copy of the AMI with an encrypted boot volume (discarding the initial unencrypted AMI in the process). Default false.
kms_key_id (string) - The ID of the KMS key to use for boot volume encryption. This only applies to the main region, other regions where the AMI will be copied will be encrypted by the default EBS KMS key.
iam_instance_profile (string) - The name of an IAM instance profile to launch the EC2 instance with.
launch_block_device_mappings (array of block device mappings) - Add one or more block devices before the packer build starts. These are not necessarily preserved when booting from the AMI built with packer. See ami_block_device_mappings, above, for details.
run_tags (object of key/value strings) - Tags to apply to the instance that is launched to create the AMI. These tags are not applied to the resulting AMI unless they're duplicated in tags. This is a template engine where the SourceAMI variable is replaced with the source AMI ID and BuildRegion variable is replaced with the value of region.
run_volume_tags (object of key/value strings) - Tags to apply to the volumes that are launched to create the AMI. These tags are not applied to the resulting AMI unless they're duplicated in tags. This is a template engine where the SourceAMI variable is replaced with the source AMI ID and BuildRegion variable is replaced with the value of region.
security_group_id (string) - The ID (not the name) of the security group to assign to the instance. By default this is not set and Packer will automatically create a new temporary security group to allow SSH access. Note that if this is specified, you must be sure the security group allows access to the ssh_port given below.
security_group_ids (array of strings) - A list of security groups as described above. Note that if this is specified, you must omit the security_group_id.
shutdown_behavior (string) - Automatically terminate instances on shutdown incase packer exits ungracefully. Possible values are "stop" and "terminate", default is stop.
skip_region_validation (boolean) - Set to true if you want to skip validation of the region configuration option. Default false.
snapshot_groups (array of strings) - A list of groups that have access to create volumes from the snapshot(s). By default no groups have permission to create volumes form the snapshot(s). all will make the snapshot publicly accessible.
snapshot_users (array of strings) - A list of account IDs that have access to create volumes from the snapshot(s). By default no additional users other than the user creating the AMI has permissions to create volumes from the backing snapshot(s).
snapshot_tags (object of key/value strings) - Tags to apply to snapshot. They will override AMI tags if already applied to snapshot. This is a template engine where the SourceAMI variable is replaced with the source AMI ID and BuildRegion variable is replaced with the value of region.
source_ami_filter (object) - Filters used to populate the source_ami field. Example:
```
{
  "source_ami_filter": {
    "filters": {
      "virtualization-type": "hvm",
      "name": "*ubuntu-xenial-16.04-amd64-server-*",
      "root-device-type": "ebs"
    },
    "owners": ["099720109477"],
    "most_recent": true
  }
}
```
This selects the most recent Ubuntu 16.04 HVM EBS AMI from Canonical. NOTE: This will fail unless exactly one AMI is returned. In the above example, most_recent will cause this to succeed by selecting the newest image.
- filters (map of strings) - filters used to select a source_ami. NOTE: This will fail unless exactly one AMI is returned. Any filter described in the docs for DescribeImages is valid.
- owners (array of strings) - This scopes the AMIs to certain Amazon account IDs. This is helpful to limit the AMIs to a trusted third party, or to your own account.
- most_recent (bool) - Selects the newest created image when true. This is most useful for selecting a daily distro build.
spot_price (string) - The maximum hourly price to pay for a spot instance to create the AMI. Spot instances are a type of instance that EC2 starts when the current spot price is less than the maximum price you specify. Spot price will be updated based on available spot instance capacity and current spot instance requests. It may save you some costs. You can set this to auto for Packer to automatically discover the best spot price or to "0" to use an on demand instance (default).
spot_price_auto_product (string) - Required if spot_price is set to auto. This tells Packer what sort of AMI you're launching to find the best spot price. This must be one of: Linux/UNIX, SUSE Linux, Windows, Linux/UNIX (Amazon VPC), SUSE Linux (Amazon VPC), Windows (Amazon VPC)
ssh_keypair_name (string) - If specified, this is the key that will be used for SSH with the machine. The key must match a key pair name loaded up into Amazon EC2. By default, this is blank, and Packer will generate a temporary keypair unless ssh_password is used. ssh_private_key_file or ssh_agent_auth must be specified when ssh_keypair_name is utilized.
ssh_agent_auth (boolean) - If true, the local SSH agent will be used to authenticate connections to the source instance. No temporary keypair will be created, and the values of ssh_password and ssh_private_key_file will be ignored. To use this option with a key pair already configured in the source AMI, leave the ssh_keypair_name blank. To associate an existing key pair in AWS with the source instance, set the ssh_keypair_name field to the name of the key pair.
ssh_private_ip (boolean) - If true, then SSH will always use the private IP if available.
subnet_id (string) - If using VPC, the ID of the subnet, such as subnet-12345def, where Packer will launch the EC2 instance. This field is required if you are using an non-default VPC.
tags (object of key/value strings) - Tags applied to the AMI and relevant snapshots. This is a template engine where the SourceAMI variable is replaced with the source AMI ID and BuildRegion variable is replaced with the value of region.
temporary_key_pair_name (string) - The name of the temporary keypair to generate. By default, Packer generates a name with a UUID.
token (string) - The access token to use. This is different from the access key and secret key. If you're not sure what this is, then you probably don't need it. This will also be read from the AWS_SESSION_TOKEN environmental variable.
user_data (string) - User data to apply when launching the instance. Note that you need to be careful about escaping characters due to the templates being JSON. It is often more convenient to use user_data_file, instead.
user_data_file (string) - Path to a file that will be used for the user data when launching the instance.
vpc_id (string) - If launching into a VPC subnet, Packer needs the VPC ID in order to create a temporary security group within the VPC. Requires subnet_id to be set.
windows_password_timeout (string) - The timeout for waiting for a Windows password for Windows instances. Defaults to 20 minutes. Example value: 10m

Basic Example

Here is a basic example. You will need to provide access keys, and may need to change the AMI IDs according to what images exist at the time the template is run:

{
  "type": "amazon-ebs",
  "access_key": "YOUR KEY HERE",
  "secret_key": "YOUR SECRET KEY HERE",
  "region": "us-east-1",
  "source_ami": "ami-fce3c696",
  "instance_type": "t2.micro",
  "ssh_username": "ubuntu",
  "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.

Further information on locating AMI IDs and their relationship to instance types and regions can be found in the AWS EC2 Documentation for Linux or for Windows.

Basic Example

{
   "type" : "amazon-surrogate",
   "secret_key" : "YOUR SECRET KEY HERE",
   "access_key" : "YOUR KEY HERE",
   "region" : "us-east-1",
   "ssh_username" : "ubuntu",
   "instance_type" : "t2.medium",
   "source_ami" : "ami-40d28157",
   "launch_block_device_mappings" : [
     {
       "volume_type" : "gp2",
       "device_name" : "/dev/xvdf",
       "delete_on_termination" : false,
       "volume_size" : 10
     }
   ],
   "ami_root_device": {
     "source_device_name": "/dev/xvdf",
     "device_name": "/dev/xvda",
     "delete_on_termination": true,
     "volume_size": 16,
     "volume_type": "gp2"
   }
}

Further information on locating AMI IDs and their relationship to instance types and regions can be found in the AWS EC2 Documentation for Linux or for Windows.

Accessing the Instance to Debug

If you need to access the instance to debug for some reason, run the 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.

-> Note: Packer uses pre-built AMIs as the source for building images. These source AMIs may include volumes that are not flagged to be destroyed on termination of the instance building the new image. In addition to those volumes created by this builder, any volumes inn the source AMI which are not marked for deletion on termination will remain in your account.

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EBS Surrogate Builder

Configuration Reference

Required:

Optional:

Basic Example

Basic Example

Accessing the Instance to Debug

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