Packer build image on AWS - Part II

System Information

# sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.14.5
BuildVersion:   18F132

Pre-requirement

• Install VirtualBox

# brew cask install virtualbox

• Install Packer

# brew install packer

Package	Version	CLI
VirtualBox	6.0.6r130049	VBoxManage -v
Packer	1.4.1	packer --version

Create Packer Directory

• Create Packer Directory Structure like below

Packer
├── ISO_Ubuntu_Server_xenial_16.04.6.json
├── http
│   └── preseed.cfg
└── output

• Create Ubuntu Pressed.cfg file in http directory

### Localization
d-i debian-installer/language string en d-i debian-installer/locale string en_US.UTF-8
d-i debian-installer/country string TW

### Keyboard selection.
d-i console-setup/ask_detect boolean false
d-i keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap select us
d-i netcfg/choose_interface select auto

### Setting hostname and domain assigned from dhcp server.
d-i netcfg/get_hostname string ubuntu
d-i netcfg/get_domain string unassigned-domain

### Mirror settings
d-i mirror/country string manual
d-i mirror/http/hostname string archive.ubuntu.com
d-i mirror/http/directory string /ubuntu
d-i mirror/http/proxy string

### To create a normal user account.
d-i passwd/user-fullname string Ubuntu User
d-i passwd/username string ubuntu

### Normal user's password, either in clear text
d-i passwd/user-password password ubuntu
d-i passwd/user-password-again password ubuntu

### Create the first user with the specified UID instead of the default.
d-i passwd/user-uid string 1000

### Allow installer use weak password
d-i user-setup/allow-password-weak boolean true

### The user account will be added to some standard initial groups.
d-i passwd/user-default-groups string adm cdrom plugdev lpadmin sambashare sudo ubuntu

### Set to true if you want to encrypt the first user's home directory.
d-i user-setup/encrypt-home boolean false

### Clock and time zone setup
d-i clock-setup/utc boolean true
d-i time/zone string Asia/Taipei

### Partitioning
d-i partman-auto/disk string /dev/sda
d-i partman-auto/method string lvm
d-i partman-lvm/device_remove_lvm boolean true
d-i partman-md/device_remove_md boolean true
d-i partman-lvm/confirm boolean true
d-i partman-lvm/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true
d-i partman-auto-lvm/guided_size string max
d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe select atomic

### This makes partman automatically partition without confirmation.
d-i partman-partitioning/confirm_write_new_label boolean true
d-i partman/choose_partition select finish
d-i partman/confirm boolean true
d-i partman/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true

### Apt setup
d-i apt-setup/services-select multiselect security
d-i apt-setup/security_host string security.ubuntu.com
d-i apt-setup/security_path string /ubuntu
d-i debian-installer/allow_unauthenticated boolean true

### Package selection
tasksel tasksel/first multiselect none

### Individual additional packages to install
d-i pkgsel/include string openssh-server build-essential net-tools chrony vim wget curl

### Policy for applying updates.
d-i pkgsel/update-policy select none

### When installer has finished and the system's locate database will be updated.
d-i pkgsel/updatedb boolean true

### Makes grub install automatically to the MBR
d-i grub-installer/only_debian boolean true
d-i grub-installer/with_other_os boolean true
d-i grub-installer/bootdev  string /dev/sda

### Avoid that last message about the install being complete.
d-i finish-install/reboot_in_progress note

### Running custom commands during the installation
d-i preseed/late_command string chroot /target sh -c "/bin/echo 'ubuntu ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL' >> /etc/sudoers; \
/bin/echo 'Hello World' >> /tmp/Hello.txt

• Create ISO_Ubuntu_Server_xenial_16.04.6.json in Packer directory

{
  "variables":{
  "vm_description": "Ubuntu Server Image",
  "vm_version": "0.0.1",
  "cpus": "2",
  "memory": "2048",
  "disk_size": "40960",
  "vm_name": "ubuntu",
  "iso_url": "http://ftp.ubuntu-tw.org/mirror/ubuntu-releases/16.04.6/ubuntu-16.04.6-server-amd64.iso",
  "iso_checksum": "16afb1375372c57471ea5e29803a89a5a6bd1f6aabea2e5e34ac1ab7eb9786ac",
  "iso_checksum_type": "sha256",
  "ssh_username": "ubuntu",
  "ssh_password": "ubuntu",
  "s3_bucket_name": "packer-images"
  },
  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "virtualbox-iso",
      "output_directory": "builds",
      "format": "ova",
      "guest_os_type": "Ubuntu_64",
      "iso_url": "{{user `iso_url`}}",
      "iso_checksum": "{{user `iso_checksum`}}",
      "iso_checksum_type": "{{user `iso_checksum_type`}}",
      "ssh_username": "{{user `ssh_username`}}",
      "ssh_password": "{{user `ssh_password`}}",
      "ssh_port": 22,
      "ssh_wait_timeout": "1000s",
      "disk_size": "{{user `disk_size`}}",
      "keep_registered": "true",
      "shutdown_command": "echo {{user `ssh_password`}} | sudo -S shutdown -P now",
      "vboxmanage": [
        ["modifyvm", "{{.Name}}", "--cpus", "{{user `cpus`}}"],
        ["modifyvm", "{{.Name}}", "--memory", "{{user `memory`}}"]
      ],
      "http_directory": "./http/",
      "boot_wait": "10s",
      "boot_command": [
        "<enter><wait><f6><esc><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        " /install/vmlinuz<wait>",
        " noapic<wait>",
        " preseed/url=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/preseed.cfg auto<wait>",
        " locale=en_US<wait>",
        " kbd-chooser/method=us<wait>",
        " keyboard-configuration/modelcode=pc105<wait>",
        " keyboard-configuration/layout=US<wait>",
        " keyboard-configuration/variant=US<wait>",
        " netcfg/get_hostname=ubuntu<wait>",
        " fb=false <wait>",
        " debconf/frontend=noninteractive<wait>",
        " console-setup/ask_detect=false<wait>",
        " initrd=/install/initrd.gz -- <wait>",
        "<enter><wait>"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "post-processors": [
    {
      "type": "amazon-import",
      "keep_input_artifact": true,
      "s3_bucket_name": "{{user `s3_bucket_name`}}",
      "ami_name": "ubuntu-16.04.6",
      "license_type": "BYOL",
      "tags": {
        "Description": "Packer Import "
      }
    }
  ]
}

Check ISO_Ubuntu_Server_xenial_16.04.6.json is validated via Packer

• Check the file is validate via Packer CLI

# packer validate ISO_Ubuntu_Server_xenial_16.04.6.json
Template validated successfully.

• Now we can build images

# packer build ISO_Ubuntu_Server_xenial_16.04.6.json

if your want to see more information, please use Debug Mode

# PACKER_LOG=1 packer build ISO_Ubuntu_Server_xenial_16.04.6.json

• Check S3 bucket

aws s3 ls s3://packer-images --recursive --summarize --human-readable

• Check import task

# aws ec2 describe-import-image-tasks

• Check import task status

aws ec2 describe-import-image-tasks --import-task-ids import-ami-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx