HackerReposA FIELD GUIDE TO OPEN SOURCE
ProSponsor the shelf♧ 0
← Back to top all-time
hashicorp
packer
Go2013–2025
hashicorp / packer

packer

Packer is a tool for creating identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source configuration.

Creative & Media
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
14Distinct people
15Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
15.8KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Packer is a tool for creating identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source configuration.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:03:16 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year15 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2013-11-11 21:25:33 UTC to 2025-03-28 03:01:52 UTC.

01232013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 2 submissions, 0 comments20132014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments20192020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC220
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC312
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC312
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

15 sources
scriptnull·Oct 26, 2021
I have faced this locking problem while trying to use packer for building out AMIs. It was a flaky process. I used to google it always and not figure out a solution and continue rerunning the builds for a long time. But one of my colleagues figured out that it is probably because the apt-get is getting locked due to cloud-init and removed the flakiness by making packer wait[1] for cloud-init to complete before running the installation scripts that involved apt-get locking. We too wished that there were more docs to help us, especially explaining how apt-get worked. [1] https://github.com/hashicorp/packer/issues/2639#issuecomment...
In Waiting for apt locks without hacky Bash scripts
mi100hael·Jan 28, 2018
AMIs in general are a pain in the ass in AWS, though. If you're using custom-built encrypted AMIs in multiple accounts, the easiest way is to build the AMI once in each account, which then leaves you with a different AMI ID in each account. So now your template with hardcoded ID that works in one account won't work in another. See: https://github.com/hashicorp/packer/issues/4772 Since you're probably also rebuilding AMIs on a regular basis to keep up with upstream updates/patches, your best bet is to use the latest version of an AMI in your template and be sure that you're also pruning old/incompatible AMIs from accounts regularly.
In Terraforming 1Password
iofiiiiiiiii·Jun 13, 2017
I am just now implementing Packer and Vagrant in our devops workflows. Terraform is next on the list. So far, it leaves me rather anxious - Packer and Vagrant appear to offer the bare minimum of usable functionality, with any advanced scenario bumping into (sometimes intentional) walls. For example, it takes me 15-20 minutes to transfer a 50 MB file to a Windows VM being created by Packer. The GitHub issue, filed nearly 2 years ago, is closed with a comment that this is by design: https://github.com/hashicorp/packer/issues/2648#issuecomment... Yet there is a PowerShell command that uses the same communication mechanism that can somehow do it in a matter of seconds. Of course, I cannot use this PowerShell command because Packer does not give me a variable with a machine's IP address because... it is improper somehow? https://github.com/has
Read the rest
hicorp/packer/issues/4993 What the hell, Hashicorp... I have a list of 10+ issues I have found so far and I am only starting to use these tools. From the activity in GitHub, they seem to be abandonware. Maybe if I submitted PRs they might be accepted (then again, maybe not: https://github.com/hashicorp/packer/pulls) but I expect more from software than just accepting PRs - I expect its authors to actually develop it and to show an interest in improving it. There is unfortunately nothing better out there. I admit, I am forced to use these products even though I do not find them satisfactory and the authors do not seem helpful. If I had to start all over again with my current knowledge, I might perhaps just write my own scripting and skip Packer/Vagrant altogether. The value they offer with VM management comes with the downside of being left in the mud and having the system work against you when you try something nontrivial. I am scared of what I will find when I touch Terraform. As I write this, I think I will first see whether I can just script it manually.
In Terraform Gotchas and How We Work Around Them
Mizza·Aug 20, 2016
Does anybody _actually_ use the HashiCorp stack, besides Vagrant, for serious work? I tried and honestly found their products sorely, sorely lacking. Very shiny documentation, very incomplete, un-battled-tested tools, no examples given, little response from their devs other than the PR team. For a small example, I _still_ get +1 notifications on this critical issue nearly every day: https://github.com/mitchellh/packer/issues/409 - no response from dev team whatsoever.
In Decommissioning Otto
mpdehaan2·Sep 28, 2015
I'm kind of glad to see this, as I wrote https://github.com/mpdehaan/strider for the reason that Packer and Vagrant used different config files. This appears to address that. OTOH, it says it's executing Vagrant and Packer under the covers, so I really need some of the Packer limitations I have (like https://github.com/mitchellh/packer/issues/409 ) addressed more than I want glue on top. Anyway, if people want to hack on Strider, pull requests are welcome. I'm not using it actively (yet), but it's a very very tiny amount of code to supply both. All the work gets done by boto. Back to otto - I am curious what otto means when it says it's going to start to talk to infrastructure and means that it's going ot be more of a workflow engine that can also invoke terraform or what. The DSL changes appear to maybe be a step in that direction? Wou
Read the rest
ld probably benefit from more than one liners on the homepage, to show what is really involved more quickly.
In Otto, the successor to Vagrant

MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

A few shortcuts

/
Search the collection
?
Open this guide
Esc
Close dialogs and navigation

Your saved repositories and interests stay in this browser.