Install Packer
- 5min
- |
- Packer
Packer may be installed in the following ways:
- Using a precompiled binary. We release binaries for all supported platforms and architectures. This method is recommended for most users.
- Installing from source. This method is only recommended for advanced users.
- Using your system's package manager.
Installing Packer
Retrieve the packer binary by downloading a pre-compiled binary or compiling it from source.
To install the precompiled binary, download the appropriate package for your system. Packer is currently packaged as a zip file.
After downloading Packer, unzip the package. Packer runs as a single
binary named packer.
Finally, make sure that the packer binary is available on your PATH. This process will differ depending on your operating system.
Print a colon-separated list of locations in your PATH.
$ echo $PATH
Move the Packer binary to one of the listed locations. This command assumes that the binary is currently in your downloads folder and that your PATH includes /usr/local/bin, but you can customize it if your locations are different.
$ mv ~/Downloads/packer /usr/local/bin/
For more detail about adding binaries to your path, see this Stack Overflow article.
This Stack Overflow article contains instructions for setting the PATH on Windows through the user interface.
To compile from source, you will need Go installed and
configured properly as well as a copy of git in
your PATH.
Create a directory in your GOPATH for the code.
$ mkdir -p $(go env GOPATH)/src/github.com/hashicorp && cd $_
Clone the Packer repository from GitHub into your GOPATH.
$ git clone https://github.com/hashicorp/packer
Change into the packer directory.
$ cd packer
Build Packer for your current system and put the binary in ./bin/ (relative to
the git checkout). The make dev target is just a shortcut that builds packer
for only your local build environment (no cross-compiled targets).
$ make dev
Homebrew is a free and open-source package management system for macOS. Install the official Packer formula from the terminal.
First, install the HashiCorp tap, a repository of all our Homebrew packages.
$ brew tap hashicorp/tap
Now, install Packer with hashicorp/tap/packer.
$ brew install hashicorp/tap/packer
Note
This installs a signed binary and is automatically updated with every new official release.
To update to the latest, run
$ brew upgrade hashicorp/tap/packer
Chocolatey is a free and open-source package management system for Windows.
If you're using Windows and Chocolatey, you can
install Packer by running choco install.
$ choco install packer
Note
The Chocolatey package is not currently maintained by HashiCorp.
HashiCorp officially maintains and signs packages for the following Linux distributions.
Add the HashiCorp GPG key.
$ curl -fsSL https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
Add the official HashiCorp Linux repository.
$ echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(grep -oP '(?<=UBUNTU_CODENAME=).*' /etc/os-release || lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hashicorp.list
Update and install.
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install packer
Install yum-config-manager to manage your repositories.
$ sudo yum install -y yum-utils
Use yum-config-manager to add the official HashiCorp Linux repository.
$ sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://rpm.releases.hashicorp.com/RHEL/hashicorp.repo
Install.
$ sudo yum -y install packer
Install dnf config-manager to manage your repositories.
$ sudo dnf install -y dnf-plugins-core
Use dnf config-manager to add the official HashiCorp Linux repository.
$ sudo dnf config-manager addrepo --from-repofile=https://rpm.releases.hashicorp.com/fedora/hashicorp.repo
Install.
$ sudo dnf -y install packer
Install yum-config-manager to manage your repositories.
$ sudo yum install -y yum-utils
Use yum-config-manager to add the official HashiCorp Linux repository.
$ sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://rpm.releases.hashicorp.com/AmazonLinux/hashicorp.repo
Install.
$ sudo yum -y install packer
Verifying the Installation
After installing Packer, verify the installation worked by opening a new command
prompt or console, and checking that packer is available:
$ packer
Usage: packer [--version] [--help] <command> [<args>]
Available commands are:
build build image(s) from template
console creates a console for testing variable interpolation
fix fixes templates from old versions of packer
fmt Rewrites HCL2 config files to canonical format
hcl2_upgrade transform a JSON template into an HCL2 configuration
init Install missing plugins or upgrade plugins
inspect see components of a template
validate check that a template is valid
version Prints the Packer version
If you get an error that packer could not be found, then your PATH environment
variable was not set up properly. Please go back and ensure that your PATH
variable contains the directory which has Packer installed.
Otherwise, Packer is installed and you're ready to go!
Troubleshooting
On some distributions, there may be another tool named packer installed by
default. The following error indicates that there is a name conflict.
$ packer
/usr/share/cracklib/pw_dict.pwd: Permission denied
/usr/share/cracklib/pw_dict: Permission denied
Note
On Arch Linux, there is a package named packer in the main
repository and in the AUR. The package packer in the AUR is an old
name for a package management tool for Arch, it's not HashiCorp
Packer.
To fix this, create a symlink to packer that uses a different name like
packer.io, or invoke the packer binary you want using its absolute path,
e.g. /usr/local/packer.