open-nomad/e2e/terraform/packer/README.md

Packer Builds

These builds are run as-needed to update the AMIs used by the end-to-end test infrastructure.

What goes here?

• steps that aren't specific to a given Nomad build: ex. all Linux instances need jq and awscli.
• steps that aren't specific to a given EC2 instance: nothing that includes an IP address.
• steps that infrequently change: the version of Consul or Vault we ship.

Running Packer builds

$ packer --version
1.6.4

# build Ubuntu Bionic AMI
$ packer build ubuntu-bionic-amd64.pkr.hcl

# build Windows AMI
$ packer build windows-2016-amd64.pkr.hcl

Debugging Packer Builds

You'll need the Windows administrator password in order to access Windows machines via winrm as Packer does. You can get this by enabling -debug on your Packer build.

packer build -debug -on-error=abort windows-2016-amd64.json
...
==> amazon-ebs: Pausing after run of step 'StepRunSourceInstance'. Press enter to continue.
==> amazon-ebs: Waiting for auto-generated password for instance...
    amazon-ebs: Password (since debug is enabled): <redacted>

Alternately, you can follow the steps in the AWS documentation. Note that you'll need the ec2_amazon-ebs.pem file that Packer drops in this directory.

Then in powershell (note the leading $ here indicate variable declarations, not shell prompts!):

$username = "Administrator"
$password = "<redacted>"
$securePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force $password
$remoteHostname = "54.x.y.z"
$port = 5986
$cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($username, $securePassword)
$so = New-PSSessionOption -SkipCACheck -SkipCNCheck

Enter-PsSession `
    -ComputerName $remoteHostname `
    -Port $port `
    -Credential $cred `
    -UseSSL `
    -SessionOption $so `
    -Authentication Basic

Packer doesn't have a cleanup command if you've run -on-error=abort. So when you're done, clean up the machine by looking for "Packer" in the AWS console:

• EC2 instances
• Key pairs
• Security groups