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Wilken RiveraandLaura Pacilio
414b576def
* Add documentation for configuring Packer for HCP Packer This change works to document the two configuration options for setting up Packer to publish build artifacts to an active HCP Packer registry. Currently the HashiCorp Cloud Platform documents the process for configuring Packer via a HCL template, which is the preferred route. This documentation focuses more on the use of environment variables for configuring Packer for HCP Packer, which is necessary for legacy JSON template users looking to publish to HCP Packer. In light of the new HCP Packer documentation page we've opted for a shorter version of the HCP Packer introduction section. * Applying the first round of suggestions to tighten up the documentation. * Move HCP Packer side bar to top * Move intro into docs * Add redirects for intro pages Co-authored-by: Laura Pacilio <[email protected]>
32 lines
1.5 KiB
Plaintext
32 lines
1.5 KiB
Plaintext
---
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page_title: Introduction
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description: |-
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Welcome to the world of Packer! This introduction guide will show you what
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Packer is, explain why it exists, the benefits it has to offer, and how you
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can get started with it. If you're already familiar with Packer, the
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documentation provides more of a reference for all available features.
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---
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# Introduction to Packer
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Welcome to the world of Packer! This introduction guide will show you what
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Packer is, explain why it exists, the benefits it has to offer, and how you can
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get started with it. If you're already familiar with Packer, the
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[documentation](/docs) provides more of a reference for all available
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features.
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## What is Packer?
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Packer is an open source tool for creating identical machine images for multiple
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platforms from a single source configuration. Packer is lightweight, runs on
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every major operating system, and is highly performant, creating machine images
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for multiple platforms in parallel. Packer does not replace configuration
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management like Chef or Puppet. In fact, when building images, Packer is able to
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use tools like Chef or Puppet to install software onto the image.
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A _machine image_ is a single static unit that contains a pre-configured
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operating system and installed software which is used to quickly create new
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running machines. Machine image formats change for each platform. Some examples
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include [AMIs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Machine_Image) for EC2,
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VMDK/VMX files for VMware, OVF exports for VirtualBox, etc.
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