terraform/website/source/docs/enterprise/packer/builds/installing-software.html.md

title
Installing Software

Installing Software

Please review the Packer Build Environment specification for important information on isolation, security, and hardware limitations before continuing.

In some cases, it may be necessary to install custom software to build your artifact using Packer. The easiest way to install software on the Packer builder is via the shell-local provisioner. This will execute commands on the host machine running Packer.

{
  "provisioners": [
    {
      "type": "shell-local",
      "command": "sudo apt-get install -y customsoftware"
    }
  ]
}

Please note that nothing is persisted between Packer builds, so you will need to install custom software on each run.

The Packer builders run the latest version of Ubuntu LTS.