gcastill0/golden-image-aws

Use HashiCorp Packer and Terraform to create and deliver a Golden Image on AWS

Quick Start

1- Use the Packer files tab to explore the baseline template ubuntu_base.pkr.hcl and the assigned variables in variables.pkr.hcl. Notice a couple of things about this machine image release:

• The Ubuntu release is Bionic 18.04
• There is no record of the AMI release

2- Use the AWS CLI to explore the available images for Ubuntu and obtain the latest OS release to use in our Packer template:

aws ec2 describe-images --owners 099720109477 \
  --filters "Name=name,Values=*minimal*hvm-ssd*focal*20*-amd64*2022*" \
  --query 'sort_by(Images, &CreationDate)[].Name' \
| jq -r '.[-1]'

2.1- Edit the file variables.pkr.hcl and replace the default value for the image_name variable with the latest Ubuntu minimal from Canonical. Your variable should look like this:

  default = "ubuntu-minimal/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-focal-20.04-amd64-minimal-2022*"

3- Navigate to the Packer folder and set up the environment:

packer init .
packer

3.1- Create a unique fingerprint and build the new machine image:

```bash
export HCP_PACKER_BUILD_FINGERPRINT="hashicat-demo-$(date +%s)"
packer validate .
packer build .

3.2- Confirm that we have an immage:

HASHICAT_IMAGE_ID=$( aws ec2 describe-images \
  --owners $AWS_ACCOUNT_ID \
| jq -r '.[] | .[] | .ImageId' )

echo $HASHICAT_IMAGE_ID

4- Navigate to the Terraform folder and use the $HASHICAT_IMAGE_ID as the input for the plan.

terraform init
terraform plan

4.1- Once we have a proper plan, deploy the new Web server:

terraform apply -auto-approve