User variables allow your templates to be further configured with variables from the command-line, environment variables, Vault, or files. This lets you parameterize your templates so that you can keep secret tokens, environment-specific data, and other types of information out of your templates. This maximizes the portability of the template.

Using user variables expects you to know how configuration templates work. If you don't know how configuration templates work yet, please read that page first.

Usage

In order to set a user variable, you must define it either within the variables section within your template, or using the command-line -var or -var-file flags.

Even if you want a user variable to default to an empty string, it is best to explicitly define it. This explicitness helps reduce the time it takes for newcomers to understand what can be modified using variables in your template.

The variables section is a key/value mapping of the user variable name to a default value. A default value can be the empty string. An example is shown below:

{
  "variables": {
    "aws_access_key": "",
    "aws_secret_key": ""
  },

  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "amazon-ebs",
      "access_key": "{{user `aws_access_key`}}",
      "secret_key": "{{user `aws_secret_key`}}"
      // ...
    }
  ]
}

In the above example, the template defines two user variables: aws_access_key and aws_secret_key. They default to empty values. Later, the variables are used within the builder we defined in order to configure the actual keys for the Amazon builder.

If the default value is null, then the user variable will be required. This means that the user must specify a value for this variable or template validation will fail.

User variables are used by calling the {{user}} function in the form of {{user 'variable'}}. This function can be used in any value but type within the template: in builders, provisioners, anywhere outside the variables section. User variables are available globally within the rest of the template.

Environment Variables

Environment variables can be used within your template using user variables. The env function is available only within the default value of a user variable, allowing you to default a user variable to an environment variable. An example is shown below:

{
  "variables": {
    "my_secret": "{{env `MY_SECRET`}}"
  }
}

This will default "my_secret" to be the value of the "MY_SECRET" environment variable (or an empty string if it does not exist).

Consul keys

Consul keys can be used within your template using the consul_key function. This function is available only within the default value of a user variable, for reasons similar to environment variables above.

{
  "variables": {
    "soft_versions": "{{ consul_key `my_image/softs_versions/next` }}"
  }
}

This will default soft_versions to the value of the key my_image/softs_versions/next in consul.

The configuration for consul (address, tokens, ...) must be specified as environment variables, as specified in the Documentation.

Vault Variables

Secrets can be read from Vault and used within your template as user variables. the vault function is available only within the default value of a user variable, allowing you to default a user variable to a vault secret.

An example of using a v2 kv engine:

If you store a value in vault using vault kv put secret/hello foo=world, you can access it using the following template engine:

{
  "variables": {
    "my_secret": "{{ vault `/secret/data/hello` `foo`}}"
  }
}

which will assign "my_secret": "world"

An example of using a v1 kv engine:

If you store a value in vault using:

vault secrets enable -version=1 -path=secrets kv
vault kv put secrets/hello foo=world

You can access it using the following template engine:

{
  "variables": {
    "VAULT_SECRETY_SECRET": "{{ vault `secrets/hello` `foo`}}"
  }
}

This example accesses the Vault path secret/data/foo and returns the value stored at the key bar, storing it as "my_secret".

In order for this to work, you must set the environment variables VAULT_TOKEN and VAULT_ADDR to valid values.

The api tool we use allows for more custom configuration of the Vault client via environment variables.

The full list of available environment variables is:

"VAULT_ADDR"
"VAULT_AGENT_ADDR"
"VAULT_CACERT"
"VAULT_CAPATH"
"VAULT_CLIENT_CERT"
"VAULT_CLIENT_KEY"
"VAULT_CLIENT_TIMEOUT"
"VAULT_SKIP_VERIFY"
"VAULT_NAMESPACE"
"VAULT_TLS_SERVER_NAME"
"VAULT_WRAP_TTL"
"VAULT_MAX_RETRIES"
"VAULT_TOKEN"
"VAULT_MFA"
"VAULT_RATE_LIMIT"

and detailed documentation for usage of each of those variables can be found here.

AWS Secrets Manager Variables

Secrets can be read from AWS Secrets Manager and used within your template as user variables. The aws_secretsmanager function is available only within the default value of a user variable, allowing you to default a user variable to an AWS Secrets Manager secret.

Plaintext Secrets

{
  "variables": {
    "password": "{{ aws_secretsmanager `globalpassword` }}"
  }
}

In the example above it is assumed that the secret globalpassword is not stored as a key pair but as a single non-JSON string value. Which the aws_secretsmanager function will return as a raw string.

Single Key Secrets

{
  "variables": {
    "password": "{{ aws_secretsmanager `sample/app/password` }}"
  }
}

In the example above it is assumed that only one key is stored in sample/app/password if there are multiple keys stored in it then you need to indicate the specific key you want to fetch as shown below.

Multiple Key Secrets

{
  "variables": {
    "db_password": "{{ aws_secretsmanager `sample/app/passwords` `db` }}",
    "api_key": "{{ aws_secretsmanager `sample/app/passwords` `api_key` }}"
  }
}

In order to use this function you have to configure valid AWS credentials using one of the following methods:

• Environment Variables
• CLI Configuration Files
• Container Credentials
• Instance Profile Credentials

Using array values

Some templates call for array values. You can use template variables for these, too. For example, the amazon-ebs builder has a configuration parameter called ami_regions, which takes an array of regions that it will copy the AMI to. You can parameterize this by using a variable that is a list of regions, joined by a ,. For example:

{
  "variables": {
    "destination_regions": "us-west-1,us-west-2"
  },
  "builders": [
    {
      "ami_name": "packer-qs-{{timestamp}}",
      "instance_type": "t2.micro",
      "region": "us-east-1",
      "source_ami_filter": {
        "filters": {
          "name": "*ubuntu-xenial-16.04-amd64-server-*",
          "root-device-type": "ebs",
          "virtualization-type": "hvm"
        },
        "most_recent": true,
        "owners": ["099720109477"]
      },
      "ami_regions": "{{user `destination_regions`}}",
      "ssh_username": "ubuntu",
      "type": "amazon-ebs"
    }
  ]
}

Setting Variables

Now that we covered how to define and use user variables within a template, the next important point is how to actually set these variables. Packer exposes two methods for setting user variables: from the command line or from a file.

From the Command Line

To set user variables from the command line, the -var flag is used as a parameter to packer build (and some other commands). Continuing our example above, we could build our template using the command below. The command is split across multiple lines for readability, but can of course be a single line.

$ packer build \
    -var 'aws_access_key=foo' \
    -var 'aws_secret_key=bar' \
    template.json

As you can see, the -var flag can be specified multiple times in order to set multiple variables. Also, variables set later on the command-line override any earlier set variable of the same name.

warning If you are calling Packer from cmd.exe, you should double-quote your variables rather than single-quoting them. For example:

packer build -var "aws_secret_key=foo" template.json

From a File

Variables can also be set from an external JSON file. The -var-file flag reads a file containing a key/value mapping of variables to values and sets those variables. An example JSON file may look like this:

{
  "aws_access_key": "foo",
  "aws_secret_key": "bar"
}

It is a single JSON object where the keys are variables and the values are the variable values. Assuming this file is in variables.json, we can build our template using the following command:

On Linux :
$ packer build -var-file=variables.json template.json
On Windows :
packer build -var-file variables.json template.json

The -var-file flag can be specified multiple times and variables from multiple files will be read and applied. As you'd expect, variables read from files specified later override a variable set earlier.

Combining the -var and -var-file flags together also works how you'd expect. Variables set later in the command override variables set earlier. So, for example, in the following command with the above variables.json file:

$ packer build \
    -var 'aws_access_key=bar' \
    -var-file=variables.json \
    -var 'aws_secret_key=baz' \
    template.json

Results in the following variables:

Sensitive Variables

If you use the environment to set a variable that is sensitive, you probably don't want that variable printed to the Packer logs. You can make sure that sensitive variables won't get printed to the logs by adding them to the "sensitive-variables" list within the Packer template:

{
  "variables": {
    "my_secret": "{{env `MY_SECRET`}}",
    "not_a_secret": "plaintext",
    "foo": "bar"
  },

  "sensitive-variables": ["my_secret", "foo"],
  ...
}

The above snippet of code will function exactly the same as if you did not set "sensitive-variables", except that the Packer UI and logs will replace all instances of "bar" and of whatever the value of "my_secret" is with <sensitive>. This allows you to be confident that you are not printing secrets in plaintext to our logs by accident.

Recipes

Making a provisioner step conditional on the value of a variable

There is no specific syntax in Packer templates for making a provisioner step conditional, depending on the value of a variable. However, you may be able to do this by referencing the variable within a command that you execute. For example, here is how to make a shell-local provisioner only run if the do_nexpose_scan variable is non-empty.

{
  "type": "shell-local",
  "command": "if [ ! -z \"{{user `do_nexpose_scan`}}\" ]; then python -u trigger_nexpose_scan.py; fi"
}

Using HOME Variable

In order to use $HOME variable, you can create a home variable in Packer:

{
  "variables": {
    "home": "{{env `HOME`}}"
  }
}

And this will be available to be used in the rest of the template, i.e.:

{
  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "google",
      "account_file": "{{ user `home` }}/.secrets/gcp-{{ user `env` }}.json"
    }
  ]
}