Full description
Packer is an open source tool for creating identical machine images for
multiple platforms from a single source configuration. Packer is lightweight,
runs on every major operating system, and is highly performant, creating
machine images for multiple platforms in parallel. Packer does not replace
configuration management like Chef or Puppet. In fact, when building images,
Packer is able to use tools like Chef or Puppet to install software onto the
image.
A machine image is a single static unit that contains a pre-configured
operating system and installed software which is used to quickly create new
running machines. Machine image formats change for each platform. Some
examples include AMIs for EC2, VMDK/VMX files for VMware, OVF exports for
VirtualBox, etc.
Packages