Clean up / explain 'packer init' use

[pwillis-els]

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Description

The packer init command does not explain the [config.pkr.hcl|folder/] option. I have tried to use it and I just get errors. Don't know what this option is for or how to use it.

The Documentation on Packer init command does not explain this config.pkr.hcl option.

I assumed I could pass in the same .pkr.hcl values-only file that is passed using -var-file to packer build. However, if you do that, packer init dies with errors.

$ packer init /home/willis2/git/repo/env/nonprod/us-east-1/dev/packer.sh.pkr.hcl
Error: Unsupported argument

  on /home/willis2/git/repo/env/nonprod/us-east-1/dev/packer.sh.pkr.hcl line 3:
   3: asg_subnets_name = "hgraph.non-prod.private_subnet"

An argument named "asg_subnets_name" is not expected here.

Error: Unsupported argument

  on /home/willis2/git/repo/env/nonprod/us-east-1/dev/packer.sh.pkr.hcl line 4:
   4: elb_subnets_name = "hgraph.non-prod.private_subnet"

An argument named "elb_subnets_name" is not expected here.

Error: Unsupported argument

  on /home/willis2/git/repo/env/nonprod/us-east-1/dev/packer.sh.pkr.hcl line 13:
  13: instance_type = "t3a.medium"

An argument named "instance_type" is not expected here.

Error: Unsupported argument

  on /home/willis2/git/repo/env/nonprod/us-east-1/dev/packer.sh.pkr.hcl line 20:
  20: config_repo_folder = "modules/root/aws-jenkins-cluster/provisioning/"

An argument named "config_repo_folder" is not expected here.

Current packer init --help output:

Usage: packer init [options] [config.pkr.hcl|folder/]

  Install all the missing plugins required in a Packer config. Note that Packer
  does not have a state.

  This is the first command that should be executed when working with a new
  or existing template.

  This command is always safe to run multiple times. Though subsequent runs may
  give errors, this command will never delete anything.

Options:
  -upgrade                     On top of installing missing plugins, update
                               installed plugins to the latest available
                               version, if there is a new higher one. Note that
                               this still takes into consideration the version
                               constraint of the config.

Use Case(s)

Any relevant use-cases that you see.

Potential configuration

Potential References

[nywilken]

Hi @pwillis-els thanks for opening up this issue. We can clear this up a bit for sure. I'll work on getting a quick doc PR open to help out.

In the meantime, the packer init command will try to load any template file ending in pkr.hcl for variable definitions (like packer.sh.pkr.hcl) we recommend using the extensions .pkrvars.hcl and .auto.pkrvars.hcl. This way you can run packer init in the containing directory and the variable definition files will get ignored automatically.

Trying to run packer init against a variable file should fail as it is not in the expected HCL format. I hope this helps a bit.

[github-actions]

This issue has been synced to JIRA for planning.

JIRA ID: HPR-750

[starkmatt]

+1 On this

Any updates?
We're building some Automated Pipelines in gitlab and one of our initial stages is running a packer init during the MR which fails as we're defining all of our vars in .pkvars.hcl files.
Error we get is

Error: Unset variable "mem_size"
A used variable must be set or have a default value; see
https://packer.io/docs/templates/hcl_templates/syntax for details.

init should be able to view the pkvars file or at least not fail on an init because they're being defined in var files.
Perhaps an init shouldn't be run in this case?

[github-actions]

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