terraform/website/source/docs/enterprise/packer/builds/build-environment.html.md

title
Packer Build Environment

Packer Build Environment

This page outlines the environment that Packer runs in within Atlas.

Supported Builders

Atlas currently supports running the following Packer builders:

• amazon-chroot
• amazon-ebs
• amazon-instance
• digitalocean
• docker
• googlecompute
• null
• openstack
• qemu
• virtualbox-iso
• vmware-iso

Files

All files in the uploading package (via Packer push or GitHub), and the application from the build pipeline are available on the filesystem of the build environment.

You can use the file icon on the running build to show a list of available files.

Files can be copied to the destination image Packer is provisioning with Packer Provisioners.

An example of this with the Shell provisioner is below.

"provisioners": [
  {
    "type": "shell",
    "scripts": [
      "scripts/vagrant.sh",
      "scripts/dependencies.sh",
      "scripts/cleanup.sh"
    ]
  }
]

We encourage use of relative paths over absolute paths to maintain portability between Atlas and local builds.

The total size of all files in the package being uploaded via Packer push or GitHub must be 5 GB or less.

If you need to upload objects that are larger, such as dmgs, see the packer push "Limits" documentation for ways around this limitation.

Hardware Limitations

Currently, each builder defined in the Packer template receives the following hardware resources. This is subject to change.

• 1 CPU core
• 2 GB of memory
• 20 GBs of disk space

Environment Variables

You can set any number of environment variables that will be injected into your build environment at runtime. These variables can be used to configure your build with secrets or other key value configuration.

Variables are encrypted and stored securely.

Additionally, the following environment variables are automatically injected by Atlas. All Atlas-injected environment variables will be prefixed with ATLAS_

• ATLAS_TOKEN - This is a unique, per-build token that expires at the end of build execution (e.g. "abcd.atlasv1.ghjkl...")
• ATLAS_BUILD_ID - This is a unique identifier for this build (e.g. "33")
• ATLAS_BUILD_NUMBER - This is a unique identifier for all builds in the same scope (e.g. "12")
• ATLAS_BUILD_NAME - This is the name of the build (e.g. "mybuild").
• ATLAS_BUILD_SLUG - This is the full name of the build (e.g. "company/mybuild").
• ATLAS_BUILD_USERNAME - This is the username associated with the build (e.g. "sammy")
• ATLAS_BUILD_CONFIGURATION_VERSION - This is the unique, auto-incrementing version for the Packer build configuration (e.g. "34").
• ATLAS_BUILD_GITHUB_BRANCH - This is the name of the branch that the associated Packer build configuration version was ingressed from (e.g. master).
• ATLAS_BUILD_GITHUB_COMMIT_SHA - This is the full commit hash of the commit that the associated Packer build configuration version was ingressed from (e.g. "abcd1234...").
• ATLAS_BUILD_GITHUB_TAG - This is the name of the tag that the associated Packer build configuration version was ingressed from (e.g. "v0.1.0").

If the build was triggered by a new application version, the following environment variables are also available:

• ATLAS_APPLICATION_NAME - This is the name of the application connected to the Packer build (e.g. "myapp").
• ATLAS_APPLICATION_SLUG - This is the full name of the application connected to the Packer build (e.g. "company/myapp").
• ATLAS_APPLICATION_USERNAME - This is the username associated with the application connected to the Packer build (e.g. "sammy")
• ATLAS_APPLICATION_VERSION - This is the version of the application connected to the Packer build (e.g. "2").
• ATLAS_APPLICATION_GITHUB_BRANCH - This is the name of the branch that the associated application version was ingressed from (e.g. master).
• ATLAS_APPLICATION_GITHUB_COMMIT_SHA - This is the full commit hash of the commit that the associated application version was ingressed from (e.g. "abcd1234...").
• ATLAS_APPLICATION_GITHUB_TAG - This is the name of the tag that the associated application version was ingressed from (e.g. "v0.1.0").

For any of the GITHUB_ attributes, the value of the environment variable will be the empty string ("") if the resource is not connected to GitHub or if the resource was created outside of GitHub (like using packer push or vagrant push).

Base Artifact Variable Injection

A base artifact can be selected on the "Settings" page for a build configuration. During each build, the latest artifact version will have it's external ID (such as an AMI for AWS) injected as an environment variable for the environment.

The keys for the following artifact types will be injected:

• aws.ami: ATLAS_BASE_ARTIFACT_AWS_AMI_ID
• amazon.ami: ATLAS_BASE_ARTIFACT_AMAZON_AMI_ID
• amazon.image: ATLAS_BASE_ARTIFACT_AMAZON_IMAGE_ID
• google.image: ATLAS_BASE_ARTIFACT_GOOGLE_IMAGE_ID

You can then reference this artifact in your Packer template, like this AWS example:

{
  "variables": {
      "base_ami": "{{env `ATLAS_BASE_ARTIFACT_AWS_AMI_ID`}}"
  },
  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "amazon-ebs",
      "access_key": "",
      "secret_key": "",
      "region": "us-east-1",
      "source_ami": "{{user `base_ami`}}"
    }
  ]
}

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Notes on Security

Packer environment variables in Atlas are encrypted using Vault and closely guarded and audited. If you have questions or concerns about the safety of your configuration, please contact our security team at security@hashicorp.com.