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QEMU

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The Qemu Packer Plugin comes with a single builder able to create KVM virtual machine images.

  • Official

Updated last month

QEMU

Type: qemu Artifact BuilderId: transcend.qemu

The Qemu Packer builder is able to create KVM virtual machine images.

The builder builds a virtual machine by creating a new virtual machine from scratch, booting it, installing an OS, rebooting the machine with the boot media as the virtual hard drive, provisioning software within the OS, then shutting it down. The result of the Qemu builder is a directory containing the image file necessary to run the virtual machine on KVM.

Basic Example

Here is a basic example. This example is functional so long as you fixup paths to files, URLS for ISOs and checksums.

HCL2

source "qemu" "example" {
  iso_url           = "http://mirror.raystedman.net/centos/6/isos/x86_64/CentOS-6.9-x86_64-minimal.iso"
  iso_checksum      = "md5:af4a1640c0c6f348c6c41f1ea9e192a2"
  output_directory  = "output_centos_tdhtest"
  shutdown_command  = "echo 'packer' | sudo -S shutdown -P now"
  disk_size         = "5000M"
  format            = "qcow2"
  accelerator       = "kvm"
  http_directory    = "path/to/httpdir"
  ssh_username      = "root"
  ssh_password      = "s0m3password"
  ssh_timeout       = "20m"
  vm_name           = "tdhtest"
  net_device        = "virtio-net"
  disk_interface    = "virtio"
  boot_wait         = "10s"
  boot_command      = ["<tab> text ks=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/centos6-ks.cfg<enter><wait>"]
}

build {
  sources = ["source.qemu.example"]
}

JSON

{
  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "qemu",
      "iso_url": "http://mirror.raystedman.net/centos/6/isos/x86_64/CentOS-6.9-x86_64-minimal.iso",
      "iso_checksum": "md5:af4a1640c0c6f348c6c41f1ea9e192a2",
      "output_directory": "output_centos_tdhtest",
      "shutdown_command": "echo 'packer' | sudo -S shutdown -P now",
      "disk_size": "5000M",
      "format": "qcow2",
      "accelerator": "kvm",
      "http_directory": "path/to/httpdir",
      "ssh_username": "root",
      "ssh_password": "s0m3password",
      "ssh_timeout": "20m",
      "vm_name": "tdhtest",
      "net_device": "virtio-net",
      "disk_interface": "virtio",
      "boot_wait": "10s",
      "boot_command": [
        "<tab> text ks=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/centos6-ks.cfg<enter><wait>"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

This is an example only, and will time out waiting for SSH because we have not provided a kickstart file. You must add a valid kickstart file to the "http_directory" and then provide the file in the "boot_command" in order for this build to run. We recommend you check out the Community Templates for a practical usage example.

Note that you will need to set "headless": true if you are running Packer on a Linux server without X11; or if you are connected via SSH to a remote Linux server and have not enabled X11 forwarding (ssh -X).

Qemu Specific Configuration Reference

There are many configuration options available for the builder. In addition to the items listed here, you will want to look at the general configuration references for ISO, HTTP, Floppy, Boot, Shutdown, Communicator configuration references, which are necessary for this build to succeed and can be found further down the page.

Optional:

  • iso_skip_cache (bool) - Use iso from provided url. Qemu must support curl block device. This defaults to false.

  • accelerator (string) - The accelerator type to use when running the VM. This may be none, kvm, tcg, hax, hvf, whpx, or xen. The appropriate software must have already been installed on your build machine to use the accelerator you specified. When no accelerator is specified, Packer will try to use kvm if it is available but will default to tcg otherwise.

    The hax accelerator has issues attaching CDROM ISOs. This is an upstream issue which can be tracked here.

    The hvf and whpx accelerator are new and experimental as of QEMU 2.12.0. You may encounter issues unrelated to Packer when using these. You may need to add [ "-global", "virtio-pci.disable-modern=on" ] to qemuargs depending on the guest operating system.

    For whpx, note that Stefan Weil's QEMU for Windows distribution does not include WHPX support and users may need to compile or source a build of QEMU for Windows themselves with WHPX support.

    NOTE: HAXM is discontinued, and as of Qemu 8.0, the option is deprecated, please consider using another accelerator.

  • disk_additional_size ([]string) - Additional disks to create. Uses vm_name as the disk name template and appends -# where # is the position in the array. # starts at 1 since 0 is the default disk. Each string represents the disk image size in bytes. Optional suffixes 'k' or 'K' (kilobyte, 1024), 'M' (megabyte, 1024k), 'G' (gigabyte, 1024M), 'T' (terabyte, 1024G), 'P' (petabyte, 1024T) and 'E' (exabyte, 1024P) are supported. 'b' is ignored. Per qemu-img documentation. Each additional disk uses the same disk parameters as the default disk. Unset by default.

  • firmware (string) - The firmware file to be used by QEMU. If unset, QEMU will load its default firmware. Also see the QEMU documentation.

    NOTE: when booting in UEFI mode, please use the efi_ (see EFI Boot Configuration) options to setup the firmware.

  • use_pflash (bool) - If a firmware file option was provided, this option can be used to change how qemu will get it. If false (the default), then the firmware is provided through the -bios option, but if true, a pflash drive will be used instead.

    NOTE: when booting in UEFI mode, please use the efi_ (see EFI Boot Configuration) options to setup the firmware.

  • disk_interface (string) - The interface to use for the disk. Allowed values include any of ide, sata, scsi, virtio or virtio-scsi^*. Note also that any boot commands or kickstart type scripts must have proper adjustments for resulting device names. The Qemu builder uses virtio by default.

    ^* Please be aware that use of the scsi disk interface has been disabled by Red Hat due to a bug described here. If you are running Qemu on RHEL or a RHEL variant such as CentOS, you must choose one of the other listed interfaces. Using the scsi interface under these circumstances will cause the build to fail.

  • disk_size (string) - The size in bytes of the hard disk of the VM. Suffix with the first letter of common byte types. Use "k" or "K" for kilobytes, "M" for megabytes, G for gigabytes, and T for terabytes. If no value is provided for disk_size, Packer uses a default of 40960M (40 GB). If a disk_size number is provided with no units, Packer will default to Megabytes.

  • skip_resize_disk (bool) - Packer resizes the QCOW2 image using qemu-img resize. Set this option to true to disable resizing. Defaults to false.

  • disk_cache (string) - The cache mode to use for disk. Allowed values include any of writethrough, writeback, none, unsafe or directsync. By default, this is set to writeback.

  • disk_discard (string) - The discard mode to use for disk. Allowed values include any of unmap or ignore. By default, this is set to ignore.

  • disk_detect_zeroes (string) - The detect-zeroes mode to use for disk. Allowed values include any of unmap, on or off. Defaults to off. When the value is "off" we don't set the flag in the qemu command, so that Packer still works with old versions of QEMU that don't have this option.

  • skip_compaction (bool) - Packer compacts the QCOW2 image using qemu-img convert. Set this option to true to disable compacting. Defaults to false.

  • disk_compression (bool) - Apply compression to the QCOW2 disk file using qemu-img convert. Defaults to false.

  • format (string) - Either qcow2 or raw, this specifies the output format of the virtual machine image. This defaults to qcow2. Due to a long-standing bug with qemu-img convert on OSX, sometimes the qemu-img convert call will create a corrupted image. If this is an issue for you, make sure that the the output format matches the input file's format, and Packer will perform a simple copy operation instead. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/+bug/1776920 for more details.

  • headless (bool) - Packer defaults to building QEMU virtual machines by launching a GUI that shows the console of the machine being built. When this value is set to true, the machine will start without a console.

    You can still see the console if you make a note of the VNC display number chosen, and then connect using vncviewer -Shared <host>:<display>

  • disk_image (bool) - Packer defaults to building from an ISO file, this parameter controls whether the ISO URL supplied is actually a bootable QEMU image. When this value is set to true, the machine will either clone the source or use it as a backing file (if use_backing_file is true); then, it will resize the image according to disk_size and boot it.

  • use_backing_file (bool) - Only applicable when disk_image is true and format is qcow2, set this option to true to create a new QCOW2 file that uses the file located at iso_url as a backing file. The new file will only contain blocks that have changed compared to the backing file, so enabling this option can significantly reduce disk usage. If true, Packer will force the skip_compaction also to be true as well to skip disk conversion which would render the backing file feature useless.

  • machine_type (string) - The type of machine emulation to use. Run your qemu binary with the flags -machine help to list available types for your system. This defaults to pc.

    NOTE: when booting a UEFI machine with Secure Boot enabled, this has to be a q35 derivative. If the machine is not a q35 derivative, nothing will boot (not even an EFI shell).

  • memory (int) - The amount of memory to use when building the VM in megabytes. This defaults to 512 megabytes.

  • net_device (string) - The driver to use for the network interface. Allowed values ne2k_pci, i82551, i82557b, i82559er, rtl8139, e1000, pcnet, virtio, virtio-net, virtio-net-pci, usb-net, i82559a, i82559b, i82559c, i82550, i82562, i82557a, i82557c, i82801, vmxnet3, i82558a or i82558b. The Qemu builder uses virtio-net by default.

  • net_bridge (string) - Connects the network to this bridge instead of using the user mode networking.

    NB This bridge must already exist. You can use the virbr0 bridge as created by vagrant-libvirt.

    NB This will automatically enable the QMP socket (see QMPEnable).

    NB This only works in Linux based OSes.

  • output_directory (string) - This is the path to the directory where the resulting virtual machine will be created. This may be relative or absolute. If relative, the path is relative to the working directory when packer is executed. This directory must not exist or be empty prior to running the builder. By default this is output-BUILDNAME where "BUILDNAME" is the name of the build.

  • qemuargs ([][]string) - Allows complete control over the qemu command line (though not qemu-img). Each array of strings makes up a command line switch that overrides matching default switch/value pairs. Any value specified as an empty string is ignored. All values after the switch are concatenated with no separator.

    Warning: The qemu command line allows extreme flexibility, so beware of conflicting arguments causing failures of your run. For instance adding a "--drive" or "--device" override will mean that none of the default configuration Packer sets will be used. To see the defaults that Packer sets, look in your packer.log file (set PACKER_LOG=1 to get verbose logging) and search for the qemu-system-x86 command. The arguments are all printed for review, and you can use those arguments along with the template engines allowed by qemu-args to set up a working configuration that includes both the Packer defaults and your extra arguments.

    Another pitfall could be setting arguments like --no-acpi, which could break the ability to send power signal type commands (e.g., shutdown -P now) to the virtual machine, thus preventing proper shutdown.

    The following shows a sample usage:

    In HCL2:

      qemuargs = [
    [ "-m", "1024M" ],
    [ "--no-acpi", "" ],
    [
      "-netdev",
      "user,id=mynet0,",
      "hostfwd=hostip:hostport-guestip:guestport",
      ""
    ],
    [ "-device", "virtio-net,netdev=mynet0" ]
  ]

    In JSON:

      "qemuargs": [
    [ "-m", "1024M" ],
    [ "--no-acpi", "" ],
    [
      "-netdev",
      "user,id=mynet0,",
      "hostfwd=hostip:hostport-guestip:guestport",
      ""
    ],
    [ "-device", "virtio-net,netdev=mynet0" ]
  ]

    would produce the following (not including other defaults supplied by the builder and not otherwise conflicting with the qemuargs):

    qemu-system-x86 -m 1024m --no-acpi -netdev
user,id=mynet0,hostfwd=hostip:hostport-guestip:guestport -device
virtio-net,netdev=mynet0"

    Windows Users: QEMU for Windows builds are available though an environmental variable does need to be set for QEMU for Windows to redirect stdout to the console instead of stdout.txt.

    The following shows the environment variable that needs to be set for Windows QEMU support:

    setx SDL_STDIO_REDIRECT=0

    You can also use the SSHHostPort template variable to produce a packer template that can be invoked by make in parallel:

    In HCL2:

      qemuargs = [
    [ "-netdev", "user,hostfwd=tcp::{{ .SSHHostPort }}-:22,id=forward"],
    [ "-device", "virtio-net,netdev=forward,id=net0"]
  ]

In JSON:
```json
  "qemuargs": [
    [ "-netdev", "user,hostfwd=tcp::{{ .SSHHostPort }}-:22,id=forward"],
    [ "-device", "virtio-net,netdev=forward,id=net0"]
  ]

    make -j 3 my-awesome-packer-templates spawns 3 packer processes, each of which will bind to their own SSH port as determined by each process. This will also work with WinRM, just change the port forward in qemuargs to map to WinRM's default port of 5985 or whatever value you have the service set to listen on.

    This is a template engine and allows access to the following variables: {{ .HTTPIP }}, {{ .HTTPPort }}, {{ .HTTPDir }}, {{ .OutputDir }}, {{ .Name }}, and {{ .SSHHostPort }}

  • qemu_img_args (QemuImgArgs) - A map of custom arguments to pass to qemu-img commands, where the key is the subcommand, and the values are lists of strings for each flag. Example:

    In HCL:

    qemu_img_args {
 convert = ["-o", "preallocation=full"]
 resize  = ["-foo", "bar"]
}

    In JSON:

    {
 "qemu_img_args": {
   "convert": ["-o", "preallocation=full"],
      "resize": ["-foo", "bar"]
 }

    Please note that unlike qemuargs, these commands are not split into switch-value sub-arrays, because the basic elements in qemu-img calls are unlikely to need an actual override. The arguments will be constructed as follows:

    • Convert: Default is qemu-img convert -O $format $sourcepath $targetpath. Adding arguments ["-foo", "bar"] to qemu_img_args.convert will change this to qemu-img convert -foo bar -O $format $sourcepath $targetpath
    • Create: Default is create -f $format $targetpath $size. Adding arguments ["-foo", "bar"] to qemu_img_args.create will change this to "create -f qcow2 -foo bar target.qcow2 1234M"
    • Resize: Default is qemu-img resize -f $format $sourcepath $size. Adding arguments ["-foo", "bar"] to qemu_img_args.resize will change this to qemu-img resize -f $format -foo bar $sourcepath $size

  • qemu_binary (string) - The name of the Qemu binary to look for. This defaults to qemu-system-x86_64, but may need to be changed for some platforms. For example qemu-kvm, or qemu-system-i386 may be a better choice for some systems.

  • qmp_enable (bool) - Enable QMP socket. Location is specified by qmp_socket_path. Defaults to false.

  • qmp_socket_path (string) - QMP Socket Path when qmp_enable is true. Defaults to output_directory/vm_name.monitor.

  • use_default_display (bool) - If true, do not pass a -display option to qemu, allowing it to choose the default. This may be needed when running under macOS, and getting errors about sdl not being available.

  • vga (string) - The type of VGA card to emulate. If undefined, this will not be included in the command-line, and the default qemu value for the emulated machine will be picked.

  • display (string) - What QEMU -display option to use. Defaults to gtk, use none to not pass the -display option allowing QEMU to choose the default. This may be needed when running under macOS, and getting errors about sdl not being available.

  • vnc_bind_address (string) - The IP address that should be binded to for VNC. By default packer will use 127.0.0.1 for this. If you wish to bind to all interfaces use 0.0.0.0.

  • vnc_use_password (bool) - Whether or not to set a password on the VNC server. This option automatically enables the QMP socket. See qmp_socket_path. Defaults to false.

  • vnc_port_min (int) - The minimum and maximum port to use for VNC access to the virtual machine. The builder uses VNC to type the initial boot_command. Because Packer generally runs in parallel, Packer uses a randomly chosen port in this range that appears available. By default this is 5900 to 6000. The minimum and maximum ports are inclusive. The minimum port cannot be set below 5900 due to a quirk in how QEMU parses vnc display address.

  • vnc_port_max (int) - VNC Port Max

  • vm_name (string) - This is the name of the image (QCOW2 or IMG) file for the new virtual machine. By default this is packer-BUILDNAME, where "BUILDNAME" is the name of the build. Currently, no file extension will be used unless it is specified in this option.

  • cdrom_interface (string) - The interface to use for the CDROM device which contains the ISO image. Allowed values include any of ide, scsi, virtio or virtio-scsi. The Qemu builder uses virtio by default. Some ARM64 images require virtio-scsi.

  • vtpm (bool) - Use a virtual (emulated) TPM device to expose to the VM.

  • use_tpm1 (bool) - Use version 1.2 of the TPM specification for the emulated TPM.

    By default, we use version 2.0 of the TPM specs for the emulated TPM, if you want to force version 1.2, set this option to true.

  • tpm_device_type (string) - The TPM device type to inject in the qemu command-line

    This is required to be specified for some platforms, as the device has to behave differently depending on the architecture.

    As per the docs:

    • x86: tpm-tis (default)
    • ARM: tpm-tis-device
    • PPC (p-series): tpm-spapr

  • boot_steps ([][]string) - This is an array of tuples of boot commands, to type when the virtual machine is booted. The first element of the tuple is the actual boot command. The second element of the tuple, which is optional, is a description of what the boot command does. This is intended to be used for interactive installers that requires many commands to complete the installation. Both the command and the description will be printed when logging is enabled. When debug mode is enabled Packer will pause after typing each boot command. This will make it easier to follow along the installation process and make sure the Packer and the installer are in sync. boot_steps and boot_commands are mutually exclusive.

    Example:

    In HCL:

    boot_steps = [
  ["1<enter><wait5>", "Install NetBSD"],
  ["a<enter><wait5>", "Installation messages in English"],
  ["a<enter><wait5>", "Keyboard type: unchanged"],

  ["a<enter><wait5>", "Install NetBSD to hard disk"],
  ["b<enter><wait5>", "Yes"]
]

    In JSON:

    {
  "boot_steps": [
    ["1<enter><wait5>", "Install NetBSD"],
    ["a<enter><wait5>", "Installation messages in English"],
    ["a<enter><wait5>", "Keyboard type: unchanged"],

    ["a<enter><wait5>", "Install NetBSD to hard disk"],
    ["b<enter><wait5>", "Yes"]
  ]
}

  • cpu_model (string) - The CPU model is what will be used by qemu for booting the virtual machine and determine which features of a specific model/family of processors is supported.

    Any string is supported here, and to see which models are supported by qemu for a specific architecture, refer to qemu -cpu help

    The default value here is that no cpu option will be passed through to qemu, therefore it will default to whichever CPU model is the default for the targetted system (on x86_64 for example, it will be qemu64)

    NOTE: RHEL9 removed support for qemu64 in their distributed qemu package, forcing users of RHEL9 on x86_64 systems to define this. "host" is a reasonable value if using an hypervisor.

ISO Configuration

By default, Packer will symlink, download or copy image files to the Packer cache into a "hash($iso_url+$iso_checksum).$iso_target_extension" file. Packer uses hashicorp/go-getter in file mode in order to perform a download.

go-getter supports the following protocols:

  • Local files
  • Git
  • Mercurial
  • HTTP
  • Amazon S3

Examples: go-getter can guess the checksum type based on iso_checksum length, and it is also possible to specify the checksum type.

In JSON:


    "iso_checksum": "946a6077af6f5f95a51f82fdc44051c7aa19f9cfc5f737954845a6050543d7c2",
    "iso_url": "ubuntu.org/.../ubuntu-14.04.1-server-amd64.iso"



    "iso_checksum": "file:ubuntu.org/..../ubuntu-14.04.1-server-amd64.iso.sum",
    "iso_url": "ubuntu.org/.../ubuntu-14.04.1-server-amd64.iso"



    "iso_checksum": "file://./shasums.txt",
    "iso_url": "ubuntu.org/.../ubuntu-14.04.1-server-amd64.iso"



    "iso_checksum": "file:./shasums.txt",
    "iso_url": "ubuntu.org/.../ubuntu-14.04.1-server-amd64.iso"

In HCL2:


    iso_checksum = "946a6077af6f5f95a51f82fdc44051c7aa19f9cfc5f737954845a6050543d7c2"
    iso_url = "ubuntu.org/.../ubuntu-14.04.1-server-amd64.iso"



    iso_checksum = "file:ubuntu.org/..../ubuntu-14.04.1-server-amd64.iso.sum"
    iso_url = "ubuntu.org/.../ubuntu-14.04.1-server-amd64.iso"



    iso_checksum = "file://./shasums.txt"
    iso_url = "ubuntu.org/.../ubuntu-14.04.1-server-amd64.iso"



    iso_checksum = "file:./shasums.txt",
    iso_url = "ubuntu.org/.../ubuntu-14.04.1-server-amd64.iso"

Required:

  • iso_checksum (string) - The checksum for the ISO file or virtual hard drive file. The type of the checksum is specified within the checksum field as a prefix, ex: "md5:{$checksum}". The type of the checksum can also be omitted and Packer will try to infer it based on string length. Valid values are "none", "{$checksum}", "md5:{$checksum}", "sha1:{$checksum}", "sha256:{$checksum}", "sha512:{$checksum}" or "file:{$path}". Here is a list of valid checksum values:

    • md5:090992ba9fd140077b0661cb75f7ce13
    • 090992ba9fd140077b0661cb75f7ce13
    • sha1:ebfb681885ddf1234c18094a45bbeafd91467911
    • ebfb681885ddf1234c18094a45bbeafd91467911
    • sha256:ed363350696a726b7932db864dda019bd2017365c9e299627830f06954643f93
    • ed363350696a726b7932db864dda019bd2017365c9e299627830f06954643f93
    • file:http://releases.ubuntu.com/20.04/SHA256SUMS
    • file:file://./local/path/file.sum
    • file:./local/path/file.sum
    • none Although the checksum will not be verified when it is set to "none", this is not recommended since these files can be very large and corruption does happen from time to time.

  • iso_url (string) - A URL to the ISO containing the installation image or virtual hard drive (VHD or VHDX) file to clone.

Optional:

  • iso_urls ([]string) - Multiple URLs for the ISO to download. Packer will try these in order. If anything goes wrong attempting to download or while downloading a single URL, it will move on to the next. All URLs must point to the same file (same checksum). By default this is empty and iso_url is used. Only one of iso_url or iso_urls can be specified.

  • iso_target_path (string) - The path where the iso should be saved after download. By default will go in the packer cache, with a hash of the original filename and checksum as its name.

  • iso_target_extension (string) - The extension of the iso file after download. This defaults to iso.

Http directory configuration

Packer will create an http server serving http_directory when it is set, a random free port will be selected and the architecture of the directory referenced will be available in your builder.

Example usage from a builder:

wget http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/foo/bar/preseed.cfg

Optional:

  • http_directory (string) - Path to a directory to serve using an HTTP server. The files in this directory will be available over HTTP that will be requestable from the virtual machine. This is useful for hosting kickstart files and so on. By default this is an empty string, which means no HTTP server will be started. The address and port of the HTTP server will be available as variables in boot_command. This is covered in more detail below.

  • http_content (map[string]string) - Key/Values to serve using an HTTP server. http_content works like and conflicts with http_directory. The keys represent the paths and the values contents, the keys must start with a slash, ex: /path/to/file. http_content is useful for hosting kickstart files and so on. By default this is empty, which means no HTTP server will be started. The address and port of the HTTP server will be available as variables in boot_command. This is covered in more detail below. Example:

      http_content = {
    "/a/b"     = file("http/b")
    "/foo/bar" = templatefile("${path.root}/preseed.cfg", { packages = ["nginx"] })
  }

  • http_port_min (int) - These are the minimum and maximum port to use for the HTTP server started to serve the http_directory. Because Packer often runs in parallel, Packer will choose a randomly available port in this range to run the HTTP server. If you want to force the HTTP server to be on one port, make this minimum and maximum port the same. By default the values are 8000 and 9000, respectively.

  • http_port_max (int) - HTTP Port Max

  • http_bind_address (string) - This is the bind address for the HTTP server. Defaults to 0.0.0.0 so that it will work with any network interface.

Floppy configuration

A floppy can be made available for your build. This is most useful for unattended Windows installs, which look for an Autounattend.xml file on removable media. By default, no floppy will be attached. All files listed in this setting get placed into the root directory of the floppy and the floppy is attached as the first floppy device. The summary size of the listed files must not exceed 1.44 MB. The supported ways to move large files into the OS are using http_directory or the file provisioner.

Optional:

  • floppy_files ([]string) - A list of files to place onto a floppy disk that is attached when the VM is booted. Currently, no support exists for creating sub-directories on the floppy. Wildcard characters (\*, ?, and []) are allowed. Directory names are also allowed, which will add all the files found in the directory to the floppy.

  • floppy_dirs ([]string) - A list of directories to place onto the floppy disk recursively. This is similar to the floppy_files option except that the directory structure is preserved. This is useful for when your floppy disk includes drivers or if you just want to organize it's contents as a hierarchy. Wildcard characters (\*, ?, and []) are allowed. The maximum summary size of all files in the listed directories are the same as in floppy_files.

  • floppy_content (map[string]string) - Key/Values to add to the floppy disk. The keys represent the paths, and the values contents. It can be used alongside floppy_files or floppy_dirs, which is useful to add large files without loading them into memory. If any paths are specified by both, the contents in floppy_content will take precedence.

    Usage example (HCL):

    floppy_files = ["vendor-data"]
floppy_content = {
  "meta-data" = jsonencode(local.instance_data)
  "user-data" = templatefile("user-data", { packages = ["nginx"] })
}
floppy_label = "cidata"

  • floppy_label (string) - Floppy Label

CD configuration

An iso (CD) containing custom files can be made available for your build.

By default, no extra CD will be attached. All files listed in this setting get placed into the root directory of the CD and the CD is attached as the second CD device.

This config exists to work around modern operating systems that have no way to mount floppy disks, which was our previous go-to for adding files at boot time.

Optional:

  • cd_files ([]string) - A list of files to place onto a CD that is attached when the VM is booted. This can include either files or directories; any directories will be copied onto the CD recursively, preserving directory structure hierarchy. Symlinks will have the link's target copied into the directory tree on the CD where the symlink was. File globbing is allowed.

    Usage example (JSON):

    "cd_files": ["./somedirectory/meta-data", "./somedirectory/user-data"],
"cd_label": "cidata",

    Usage example (HCL):

    cd_files = ["./somedirectory/meta-data", "./somedirectory/user-data"]
cd_label = "cidata"

    The above will create a CD with two files, user-data and meta-data in the CD root. This specific example is how you would create a CD that can be used for an Ubuntu 20.04 autoinstall.

    Since globbing is also supported,

    cd_files = ["./somedirectory/*"]
cd_label = "cidata"

    Would also be an acceptable way to define the above cd. The difference between providing the directory with or without the glob is whether the directory itself or its contents will be at the CD root.

    Use of this option assumes that you have a command line tool installed that can handle the iso creation. Packer will use one of the following tools:

    • xorriso
    • mkisofs
    • hdiutil (normally found in macOS)
    • oscdimg (normally found in Windows as part of the Windows ADK)

  • cd_content (map[string]string) - Key/Values to add to the CD. The keys represent the paths, and the values contents. It can be used alongside cd_files, which is useful to add large files without loading them into memory. If any paths are specified by both, the contents in cd_content will take precedence.

    Usage example (HCL):

    cd_files = ["vendor-data"]
cd_content = {
  "meta-data" = jsonencode(local.instance_data)
  "user-data" = templatefile("user-data", { packages = ["nginx"] })
}
cd_label = "cidata"

  • cd_label (string) - CD Label

Shutdown configuration

Optional:

  • shutdown_command (string) - The command to use to gracefully shut down the machine once all provisioning is complete. By default this is an empty string, which tells Packer to just forcefully shut down the machine. This setting can be safely omitted if for example, a shutdown command to gracefully halt the machine is configured inside a provisioning script. If one or more scripts require a reboot it is suggested to leave this blank (since reboots may fail) and instead specify the final shutdown command in your last script.

  • shutdown_timeout (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The amount of time to wait after executing the shutdown_command for the virtual machine to actually shut down. If the machine doesn't shut down in this time it is considered an error. By default, the time out is "5m" (five minutes).

Communicator configuration

Optional common fields:

  • communicator (string) - Packer currently supports three kinds of communicators:

    • none - No communicator will be used. If this is set, most provisioners also can't be used.

    • ssh - An SSH connection will be established to the machine. This is usually the default.

    • winrm - A WinRM connection will be established.

    In addition to the above, some builders have custom communicators they can use. For example, the Docker builder has a "docker" communicator that uses docker exec and docker cp to execute scripts and copy files.

  • pause_before_connecting (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - We recommend that you enable SSH or WinRM as the very last step in your guest's bootstrap script, but sometimes you may have a race condition where you need Packer to wait before attempting to connect to your guest.

    If you end up in this situation, you can use the template option pause_before_connecting. By default, there is no pause. For example if you set pause_before_connecting to 10m Packer will check whether it can connect, as normal. But once a connection attempt is successful, it will disconnect and then wait 10 minutes before connecting to the guest and beginning provisioning.

  • host_port_min (int) - The minimum port to use for the Communicator port on the host machine which is forwarded to the SSH or WinRM port on the guest machine. By default this is 2222.

  • host_port_max (int) - The maximum port to use for the Communicator port on the host machine which is forwarded to the SSH or WinRM port on the guest machine. Because Packer often runs in parallel, Packer will choose a randomly available port in this range to use as the host port. By default this is 4444.

  • skip_nat_mapping (bool) - Defaults to false. When enabled, Packer does not setup forwarded port mapping for communicator (SSH or WinRM) requests and uses ssh_port or winrm_port on the host to communicate to the virtual machine.

Optional SSH fields:

  • ssh_host (string) - The address to SSH to. This usually is automatically configured by the builder.

  • ssh_port (int) - The port to connect to SSH. This defaults to 22.

  • ssh_username (string) - The username to connect to SSH with. Required if using SSH.

  • ssh_password (string) - A plaintext password to use to authenticate with SSH.

  • ssh_ciphers ([]string) - This overrides the value of ciphers supported by default by Golang. The default value is [ "aes128-gcm@openssh.com", "chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com", "aes128-ctr", "aes192-ctr", "aes256-ctr", ]

    Valid options for ciphers include: "aes128-ctr", "aes192-ctr", "aes256-ctr", "aes128-gcm@openssh.com", "chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com", "arcfour256", "arcfour128", "arcfour", "aes128-cbc", "3des-cbc",

  • ssh_clear_authorized_keys (bool) - If true, Packer will attempt to remove its temporary key from ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and /root/.ssh/authorized_keys. This is a mostly cosmetic option, since Packer will delete the temporary private key from the host system regardless of whether this is set to true (unless the user has set the -debug flag). Defaults to "false"; currently only works on guests with sed installed.

  • ssh_key_exchange_algorithms ([]string) - If set, Packer will override the value of key exchange (kex) algorithms supported by default by Golang. Acceptable values include: "curve25519-sha256@libssh.org", "ecdh-sha2-nistp256", "ecdh-sha2-nistp384", "ecdh-sha2-nistp521", "diffie-hellman-group14-sha1", and "diffie-hellman-group1-sha1".

  • ssh_certificate_file (string) - Path to user certificate used to authenticate with SSH. The ~ can be used in path and will be expanded to the home directory of current user.

  • ssh_pty (bool) - If true, a PTY will be requested for the SSH connection. This defaults to false.

  • ssh_timeout (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The time to wait for SSH to become available. Packer uses this to determine when the machine has booted so this is usually quite long. Example value: 10m. This defaults to 5m, unless ssh_handshake_attempts is set.

  • ssh_disable_agent_forwarding (bool) - If true, SSH agent forwarding will be disabled. Defaults to false.

  • ssh_handshake_attempts (int) - The number of handshakes to attempt with SSH once it can connect. This defaults to 10, unless a ssh_timeout is set.

  • ssh_bastion_host (string) - A bastion host to use for the actual SSH connection.

  • ssh_bastion_port (int) - The port of the bastion host. Defaults to 22.

  • ssh_bastion_agent_auth (bool) - If true, the local SSH agent will be used to authenticate with the bastion host. Defaults to false.

  • ssh_bastion_username (string) - The username to connect to the bastion host.

  • ssh_bastion_password (string) - The password to use to authenticate with the bastion host.

  • ssh_bastion_interactive (bool) - If true, the keyboard-interactive used to authenticate with bastion host.

  • ssh_bastion_private_key_file (string) - Path to a PEM encoded private key file to use to authenticate with the bastion host. The ~ can be used in path and will be expanded to the home directory of current user.

  • ssh_bastion_certificate_file (string) - Path to user certificate used to authenticate with bastion host. The ~ can be used in path and will be expanded to the home directory of current user.

  • ssh_file_transfer_method (string) - scp or sftp - How to transfer files, Secure copy (default) or SSH File Transfer Protocol.

    NOTE: Guests using Windows with Win32-OpenSSH v9.1.0.0p1-Beta, scp (the default protocol for copying data) returns a a non-zero error code since the MOTW cannot be set, which cause any file transfer to fail. As a workaround you can override the transfer protocol with SFTP instead ssh_file_transfer_protocol = "sftp".

  • ssh_proxy_host (string) - A SOCKS proxy host to use for SSH connection

  • ssh_proxy_port (int) - A port of the SOCKS proxy. Defaults to 1080.

  • ssh_proxy_username (string) - The optional username to authenticate with the proxy server.

  • ssh_proxy_password (string) - The optional password to use to authenticate with the proxy server.

  • ssh_keep_alive_interval (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - How often to send "keep alive" messages to the server. Set to a negative value (-1s) to disable. Example value: 10s. Defaults to 5s.

  • ssh_read_write_timeout (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The amount of time to wait for a remote command to end. This might be useful if, for example, packer hangs on a connection after a reboot. Example: 5m. Disabled by default.

  • ssh_remote_tunnels ([]string) -

  • ssh_local_tunnels ([]string) -

  • ssh_private_key_file (string) - Path to a PEM encoded private key file to use to authenticate with SSH. The ~ can be used in path and will be expanded to the home directory of current user.

Optional WinRM fields:

  • winrm_username (string) - The username to use to connect to WinRM.

  • winrm_password (string) - The password to use to connect to WinRM.

  • winrm_host (string) - The address for WinRM to connect to.

    NOTE: If using an Amazon EBS builder, you can specify the interface WinRM connects to via ssh_interface

  • winrm_no_proxy (bool) - Setting this to true adds the remote host:port to the NO_PROXY environment variable. This has the effect of bypassing any configured proxies when connecting to the remote host. Default to false.

  • winrm_port (int) - The WinRM port to connect to. This defaults to 5985 for plain unencrypted connection and 5986 for SSL when winrm_use_ssl is set to true.

  • winrm_timeout (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The amount of time to wait for WinRM to become available. This defaults to 30m since setting up a Windows machine generally takes a long time.

  • winrm_use_ssl (bool) - If true, use HTTPS for WinRM.

  • winrm_insecure (bool) - If true, do not check server certificate chain and host name.

  • winrm_use_ntlm (bool) - If true, NTLMv2 authentication (with session security) will be used for WinRM, rather than default (basic authentication), removing the requirement for basic authentication to be enabled within the target guest. Further reading for remote connection authentication can be found here.

Boot Configuration

The boot command "typed" character for character over a VNC connection to the machine, simulating a human actually typing the keyboard.

Keystrokes are typed as separate key up/down events over VNC with a default 100ms delay. The delay alleviates issues with latency and CPU contention. You can tune this delay on a per-builder basis by specifying "boot_key_interval" in your Packer template.

The boot configuration is very important: boot_command specifies the keys to type when the virtual machine is first booted in order to start the OS installer. This command is typed after boot_wait, which gives the virtual machine some time to actually load.

The boot_command is an array of strings. The strings are all typed in sequence. It is an array only to improve readability within the template.

There are a set of special keys available. If these are in your boot command, they will be replaced by the proper key:

  • <bs> - Backspace

  • <del> - Delete

  • <enter> <return> - Simulates an actual "enter" or "return" keypress.

  • <esc> - Simulates pressing the escape key.

  • <tab> - Simulates pressing the tab key.

  • <f1> - <f12> - Simulates pressing a function key.

  • <up> <down> <left> <right> - Simulates pressing an arrow key.

  • <spacebar> - Simulates pressing the spacebar.

  • <insert> - Simulates pressing the insert key.

  • <home> <end> - Simulates pressing the home and end keys.

  • <pageUp> <pageDown> - Simulates pressing the page up and page down keys.

  • <menu> - Simulates pressing the Menu key.

  • <leftAlt> <rightAlt> - Simulates pressing the alt key.

  • <leftCtrl> <rightCtrl> - Simulates pressing the ctrl key.

  • <leftShift> <rightShift> - Simulates pressing the shift key.

  • <leftSuper> <rightSuper> - Simulates pressing the ⌘ or Windows key.

  • <wait> <wait5> <wait10> - Adds a 1, 5 or 10 second pause before sending any additional keys. This is useful if you have to generally wait for the UI to update before typing more.

  • <waitXX> - Add an arbitrary pause before sending any additional keys. The format of XX is a sequence of positive decimal numbers, each with optional fraction and a unit suffix, such as 300ms, 1.5h or 2h45m. Valid time units are ns, us (or µs), ms, s, m, h. For example <wait10m> or <wait1m20s>.

  • <XXXOn> <XXXOff> - Any printable keyboard character, and of these "special" expressions, with the exception of the <wait> types, can also be toggled on or off. For example, to simulate ctrl+c, use <leftCtrlOn>c<leftCtrlOff>. Be sure to release them, otherwise they will be held down until the machine reboots. To hold the c key down, you would use <cOn>. Likewise, <cOff> to release.

  • {{ .HTTPIP }} {{ .HTTPPort }} - The IP and port, respectively of an HTTP server that is started serving the directory specified by the http_directory configuration parameter. If http_directory isn't specified, these will be blank!

  • {{ .Name }} - The name of the VM.

Example boot command. This is actually a working boot command used to start an CentOS 6.4 installer:

In JSON:

"boot_command": [

       "<tab><wait>",
       " ks=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/centos6-ks.cfg<enter>"
    ]

In HCL2:

boot_command = [

       "<tab><wait>",
       " ks=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/centos6-ks.cfg<enter>"
    ]

The example shown below is a working boot command used to start an Ubuntu 12.04 installer:

In JSON:

"boot_command": [

    "<esc><esc><enter><wait>",
    "/install/vmlinuz noapic ",
    "preseed/url=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/preseed.cfg ",
    "debian-installer=en_US auto locale=en_US kbd-chooser/method=us ",
    "hostname={{ .Name }} ",
    "fb=false debconf/frontend=noninteractive ",
    "keyboard-configuration/modelcode=SKIP keyboard-configuration/layout=USA ",
    "keyboard-configuration/variant=USA console-setup/ask_detect=false ",
    "initrd=/install/initrd.gz -- <enter>"

]

In HCL2:

boot_command = [

    "<esc><esc><enter><wait>",
    "/install/vmlinuz noapic ",
    "preseed/url=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/preseed.cfg ",
    "debian-installer=en_US auto locale=en_US kbd-chooser/method=us ",
    "hostname={{ .Name }} ",
    "fb=false debconf/frontend=noninteractive ",
    "keyboard-configuration/modelcode=SKIP keyboard-configuration/layout=USA ",
    "keyboard-configuration/variant=USA console-setup/ask_detect=false ",
    "initrd=/install/initrd.gz -- <enter>"

]

For more examples of various boot commands, see the sample projects from our community templates page.

Optional:

  • disable_vnc (bool) - Whether to create a VNC connection or not. A boot_command cannot be used when this is true. Defaults to false.

  • boot_key_interval (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - Time in ms to wait between each key press

  • boot_keygroup_interval (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - Time to wait after sending a group of key pressses. The value of this should be a duration. Examples are 5s and 1m30s which will cause Packer to wait five seconds and one minute 30 seconds, respectively. If this isn't specified, a sensible default value is picked depending on the builder type.

  • boot_wait (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The time to wait after booting the initial virtual machine before typing the boot_command. The value of this should be a duration. Examples are 5s and 1m30s which will cause Packer to wait five seconds and one minute 30 seconds, respectively. If this isn't specified, the default is 10s or 10 seconds. To set boot_wait to 0s, use a negative number, such as "-1s"

  • boot_command ([]string) - This is an array of commands to type when the virtual machine is first booted. The goal of these commands should be to type just enough to initialize the operating system installer. Special keys can be typed as well, and are covered in the section below on the boot command. If this is not specified, it is assumed the installer will start itself.

EFI Boot Configuration

Booting in EFI mode

Use these options if wanting to boot on a UEFI firmware, as the options to do so are different from what BIOS (default) booting will require.

Optional

  • efi_boot (bool) - Boot in EFI mode instead of BIOS. This is required for more modern guest OS. If either or both of efi_firmware_code or efi_firmware_vars are defined, this will implicitely be set to true.

    NOTE: when using a Secure-Boot enabled firmware, the machine type has to be q35, otherwise qemu will not boot.

  • efi_firmware_code (string) - Path to the CODE part of OVMF (or other compatible firmwares) The OVMF_CODE.fd file contains the bootstrap code for booting in EFI mode, and requires a separate VARS.fd file to be able to persist data between boot cycles.

    Default: /usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_CODE.fd

  • efi_firmware_vars (string) - Path to the VARS corresponding to the OVMF code file.

    Default: /usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_VARS.fd

SMP Configuration

QemuSMPConfig sets the smp configuration option for the Qemu command-line

The smp option sets the number of vCPUs to expose to the VM, the final number of available vCPUs is sockets * cores * threads.

Optional

  • cpus (int) - The number of virtual cpus to use when building the VM.

    If undefined, the value will either be 1, or the product of sockets * cores * threads

    If this is defined in conjunction with any topology specifier (sockets, cores and/or threads), the smallest of the two will be used.

    If the cpu count is the only thing specified, qemu's default behaviour regarding topology will be applied. The behaviour depends on the version of qemu; before version 6.2, sockets were preferred to cores, from version 6.2 onwards, cores are preferred.

  • sockets (int) - The number of sockets to use when building the VM. The default is 1 socket. The socket count must not be higher than the CPU count.

  • cores (int) - The number of cores per CPU to use when building the VM. The default is 1 core per CPU.

  • threads (int) - The number of threads per core to use when building the VM. The default is 1 thread per core.

Communicator Configuration

Optional:

  • communicator (string) - Packer currently supports three kinds of communicators:

    • none - No communicator will be used. If this is set, most provisioners also can't be used.

    • ssh - An SSH connection will be established to the machine. This is usually the default.

    • winrm - A WinRM connection will be established.

    In addition to the above, some builders have custom communicators they can use. For example, the Docker builder has a "docker" communicator that uses docker exec and docker cp to execute scripts and copy files.

  • pause_before_connecting (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - We recommend that you enable SSH or WinRM as the very last step in your guest's bootstrap script, but sometimes you may have a race condition where you need Packer to wait before attempting to connect to your guest.

    If you end up in this situation, you can use the template option pause_before_connecting. By default, there is no pause. For example if you set pause_before_connecting to 10m Packer will check whether it can connect, as normal. But once a connection attempt is successful, it will disconnect and then wait 10 minutes before connecting to the guest and beginning provisioning.

Troubleshooting

Invalid Keymaps

Some users have experienced errors complaining about invalid keymaps. This seems to be related to having a common directory or file in the directory they've run Packer in, like the Packer source directory. This appears to be an upstream bug with qemu, and the best solution for now is to remove the file/directory or run in another directory.

Some users have reported issues with incorrect keymaps using qemu version 2.11. This is a bug with qemu, and the solution is to upgrade, or downgrade to 2.10.1 or earlier.

Corrupted image after Packer calls qemu-img convert on OSX

Due to an upstream bug with qemu-img convert on OSX, sometimes the qemu-img convert call will create a corrupted image. If this is an issue for you, make sure that the the output format (provided using the option format) matches the input file's format and file extension, and Packer will perform a simple copy operation instead. You will also want to set "skip_compaction": true, and "disk_compression": false to skip a final image conversion at the end of the build. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/+bug/1776920 for more details.