Commit 1c868dde authored by Mitchell Hashimoto's avatar Mitchell Hashimoto

Update README

parent 7edfb662
# Packer
Packer is a tool for building identical machine images across multiple clouds.
Packer is a tool for building identical machine images for multiple platforms
from a single source configuration.
Packer provides a framework and configuration format for creating identical
machine images to launch into any environment, such as VirtualBox, VMware,
Amazon EC2, etc. Because this build process is automated, you can develop in
VirtualBox, then deploy to EC2 with an identical image.
Packer is lightweight, runs on every major operating system, and is highly
performant, creating machine images for multiple platforms in parallel.
Packer comes out of the box with support for creating AMIs (EC2), VMware
images, and VirtualBox images. Support for more platforms can be added via
plugins.
## Quick Start
First, get Packer by either downloading a pre-built Packer binary for
your operating system or [downloading and compiling Packer yourself](#developing-packer).
After Packer is installed, build your first machine image.
After Packer is installed, create your first template, which tells Packer
what platforms to build images for and how you want to build them. In our
case, we'll create a simple AMI that has Redis pre-installed. Save this
file as `quick-start.json`. Be sure to replace any credentials with your
own.
```json
{
"builders": [{
"type": "amazon-ebs",
"access_key": "YOUR KEY HERE",
"secret_key": "YOUR SECRET KEY HERE",
"region": "us-east-1",
"source_ami": "ami-de0d9eb7",
"instance_type": "m1.small",
"ssh_username": "ubuntu",
"ami_name": "packer-quick-start {{.CreateTime}}"
}]
}
```
Next, tell Packer to build the image:
```
$ packer build quick-start.json
......@@ -25,50 +48,11 @@ delete it using the [AWS console](https://console.aws.amazon.com/). Packer
builds your images, it does not manage their lifecycle. Where they go, how
they're run, etc. is up to you.
## Templates
Templates are static configurations that describe what machine images
you want to create, how to create them, and what format you finally want
them to be in.
Packer reads a template and builds all the requested machine images
in parallel.
Templates are written in [TOML](https://github.com/mojombo/toml). TOML is
a fantastic configuration language that you can learn in minutes, and is
very human-readable as well.
First, a complete template is shown below. Then, the details and
structure of a template are discussed:
```toml
name = "my-custom-image"
[builder.amazon-ebs]
source = "ami-de0d9eb7"
[provision]
[provison.shell]
type = "shell"
path = "script.sh"
[output]
[output.vagrant]
```
Templates are comprised of three parts:
* **builders** (1 or more) specify how the initial running system is
built.
## Documentation
* **provisioners** (0 or more) specify how to install and configure
software from within the base running system.
Full, comprehensive documentation is viewable on the Packer website:
* **outputs** (0 or more) specify what to do with the completed system.
For example, these can output [Vagrant](http://www.vagrantup.com)-compatible
boxes, gzipped files, etc.
http://www.packer.io/docs
## Developing Packer
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