github.com/kikitux/packer@v0.10.1-0.20160322154024-6237df566f9f/website/source/docs/basics/terminology.html.md (about)

     1  ---
     2  description: |
     3      There are a handful of terms used throughout the Packer documentation where the
     4      meaning may not be immediately obvious if you haven't used Packer before.
     5      Luckily, there are relatively few. This page documents all the terminology
     6      required to understand and use Packer. The terminology is in alphabetical order
     7      for easy referencing.
     8  layout: docs
     9  page_title: Packer Terminology
    10  ...
    11  
    12  # Packer Terminology
    13  
    14  There are a handful of terms used throughout the Packer documentation where the
    15  meaning may not be immediately obvious if you haven't used Packer before.
    16  Luckily, there are relatively few. This page documents all the terminology
    17  required to understand and use Packer. The terminology is in alphabetical order
    18  for easy referencing.
    19  
    20  -   `Artifacts` are the results of a single build, and are usually a set of IDs
    21      or files to represent a machine image. Every builder produces a
    22      single artifact. As an example, in the case of the Amazon EC2 builder, the
    23      artifact is a set of AMI IDs (one per region). For the VMware builder, the
    24      artifact is a directory of files comprising the created virtual machine.
    25  
    26  -   `Builds` are a single task that eventually produces an image for a
    27      single platform. Multiple builds run in parallel. Example usage in a
    28      sentence: "The Packer build produced an AMI to run our web application." Or:
    29      "Packer is running the builds now for VMware, AWS, and VirtualBox."
    30  
    31  -   `Builders` are components of Packer that are able to create a machine image
    32      for a single platform. Builders read in some configuration and use that to
    33      run and generate a machine image. A builder is invoked as part of a build in
    34      order to create the actual resulting images. Example builders include
    35      VirtualBox, VMware, and Amazon EC2. Builders can be created and added to
    36      Packer in the form of plugins.
    37  
    38  -   `Commands` are sub-commands for the `packer` program that perform some job.
    39      An example command is "build", which is invoked as `packer build`. Packer
    40      ships with a set of commands out of the box in order to define its
    41      command-line interface. Commands can also be created and added to Packer in
    42      the form of plugins.
    43  
    44  -   `Post-processors` are components of Packer that take the result of a builder
    45      or another post-processor and process that to create a new artifact.
    46      Examples of post-processors are compress to compress artifacts, upload to
    47      upload artifacts, etc.
    48  
    49  -   `Provisioners` are components of Packer that install and configure software
    50      within a running machine prior to that machine being turned into a
    51      static image. They perform the major work of making the image contain
    52      useful software. Example provisioners include shell scripts, Chef,
    53      Puppet, etc.
    54  
    55  -   `Templates` are JSON files which define one or more builds by configuring
    56      the various components of Packer. Packer is able to read a template and use
    57      that information to create multiple machine images in parallel.