github.com/raghuse92/packer@v1.3.2/website/source/docs/basics/terminology.html.md (about) 1 --- 2 description: | 3 There are a handful of terms used throughout the Packer documentation where 4 the 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 7 order for quick referencing. 8 layout: docs 9 page_title: 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 quick referencing. 19 20 - `Artifacts` are the results of a single build, and are usually a set of IDs or 21 files to represent a machine image. Every builder produces a single artifact. 22 As an example, in the case of the Amazon EC2 builder, the artifact is a set of 23 AMI IDs (one per region). For the VMware builder, the artifact is a directory 24 of files comprising the created virtual machine. 25 26 - `Builds` are a single task that eventually produces an image for a single 27 platform. Multiple builds run in parallel. Example usage in a sentence: "The 28 Packer build produced an AMI to run our web application." Or: "Packer is 29 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 run 33 and generate a machine image. A builder is invoked as part of a build in order 34 to create the actual resulting images. Example builders include VirtualBox, 35 VMware, and Amazon EC2. Builders can be created and added to Packer in the 36 form of plugins. 37 38 - `Commands` are sub-commands for the `packer` program that perform some job. An 39 example command is "build", which is invoked as `packer build`. Packer ships 40 with a set of commands out of the box in order to define its command-line 41 interface. 42 43 - `Post-processors` are components of Packer that take the result of a builder 44 or another post-processor and process that to create a new artifact. Examples 45 of post-processors are compress to compress artifacts, upload to upload 46 artifacts, etc. 47 48 - `Provisioners` are components of Packer that install and configure software 49 within a running machine prior to that machine being turned into a static 50 image. They perform the major work of making the image contain useful 51 software. Example provisioners include shell scripts, Chef, Puppet, etc. 52 53 - `Templates` are JSON files which define one or more builds by configuring the 54 various components of Packer. Packer is able to read a template and use that 55 information to create multiple machine images in parallel.