github.com/aspring/packer@v0.8.1-0.20150629211158-9db281ac0f89/website/source/intro/index.html.markdown (about)

     1  ---
     2  layout: "intro"
     3  page_title: "Introduction"
     4  prev_url: "#"
     5  next_url: "/intro/why.html"
     6  next_title: "Why Use Packer?"
     7  description: |-
     8    Welcome to the world of Packer! This introduction guide will show you what Packer is, explain why it exists, the benefits it has to offer, and how you can get started with it. If you're already familiar with Packer, the documentation provides more of a reference for all available features.
     9  ---
    10  
    11  # Introduction to Packer
    12  
    13  Welcome to the world of Packer! This introduction guide will show you what
    14  Packer is, explain why it exists, the benefits it has to offer, and how
    15  you can get started with it. If you're already familiar with Packer, the
    16  [documentation](/docs) provides more of a reference for all available features.
    17  
    18  ## What is Packer?
    19  
    20  Packer is an open source tool for creating identical machine images for multiple platforms
    21  from a single source configuration. Packer is lightweight, runs on every major
    22  operating system, and is highly performant, creating machine images for
    23  multiple platforms in parallel. Packer does not replace configuration management
    24  like Chef or Puppet. In fact, when building images, Packer is able to use tools
    25  like Chef or Puppet to install software onto the image.
    26  
    27  A _machine image_ is a single static unit that contains a pre-configured operating
    28  system and installed software which is used to quickly create new running machines.
    29  Machine image formats change for each platform. Some examples include
    30  [AMIs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Machine_Image) for EC2,
    31  VMDK/VMX files for VMware, OVF exports for VirtualBox, etc.