AWS AMI Builder
Build Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) using Packer's amazon-ebs builder.
Reference: Amazon EBS Builder
Note: Building AMIs incurs AWS costs (EC2 instances, EBS storage, data transfer). Builds typically take 10-30 minutes depending on provisioning complexity.
Basic AMI Template
packer {
required_plugins {
amazon = {
source = "github.com/hashicorp/amazon"
version = "~> 1.3"
}
}
}
variable "region" {
type = string
default = "us-west-2"
}
locals {
timestamp = regex_replace(timestamp(), "[- TZ:]", "")
}
source "amazon-ebs" "ubuntu" {
region = var.region
instance_type = "t3.micro"
source_ami_filter {
filters = {
name = "ubuntu/images/*ubuntu-jammy-22.04-amd64-server-*"
root-device-type = "ebs"
virtualization-type = "hvm"
}
most_recent = true
owners = ["099720109477"] # Canonical
}
ssh_username = "ubuntu"
ami_name = "my-app-${local.timestamp}"
tags = {
Name = "my-app"
BuildDate = local.timestamp
}
}
build {
sources = ["source.amazon-ebs.ubuntu"]
provisioner "shell" {
inline = [
"sudo apt-get update",
"sudo apt-get upgrade -y",
]
}
}
Common Source AMI Filters
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
source_ami_filter {
filters = {
name = "ubuntu/images/*ubuntu-jammy-22.04-amd64-server-*"
root-device-type = "ebs"
virtualization-type = "hvm"
}
most_recent = true
owners = ["099720109477"] # Canonical
}
Amazon Linux 2023
source_ami_filter {
filters = {
name = "al2023-ami-*-x86_64"
root-device-type = "ebs"
virtualization-type = "hvm"
}
most_recent = true
owners = ["amazon"]
}
Multi-Region AMI
source "amazon-ebs" "ubuntu" {
region = "us-west-2"
instance_type = "t3.micro"
source_ami_filter {
filters = {
name = "ubuntu/images/*ubuntu-jammy-22.04-amd64-server-*"
}
most_recent = true
owners = ["099720109477"]
}
ssh_username = "ubuntu"
ami_name = "my-app-${local.timestamp}"
# Copy to additional regions
ami_regions = ["us-east-1", "us-east-2", "eu-west-1"]
}
Authentication
Packer uses AWS credential resolution:
- Environment variables:
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
- AWS credentials file:
~/.aws/credentials
- IAM instance profile (when running on EC2)
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="your-access-key"
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="your-secret-key"
export AWS_REGION="us-west-2"
packer build .
Build Commands
# Initialize plugins
packer init .
# Validate template
packer validate .
# Build AMI
packer build .
# Build with variables
packer build -var "region=us-east-1" .
Common Issues
SSH Timeout
- Ensure security group allows SSH (port 22)
- Verify subnet has internet access
AMI Already Exists
- AMI names must be unique
- Use timestamp in name:
my-app-${local.timestamp}
Volume Size Too Small
- Check source AMI's volume size
- Set
launch_block_device_mappings.volume_size accordingly
References