packer-builder/var-file

Select the image build to run.

If a value is set for this Param, the Packer build will use this file as the variables override. If this is not set, then the default of variables.json in the packer directory will be used.

Warning

To utilize a custom variables set of values, the operator must first render or make available the JSON variables file on the system that the content will run on.

Example value for this Param: /tmp/variables.json

The file specified must be in valid JSON format. You may specify only the specifc build variables that you wish to override, otherwise, the embedded Variable references in each target build will take precedence.

An example of valid JSON format for setting variables is below (this is an example of the files content that should be rendered for use on the system):

{
  "disk_size": "20480",
  "output_directory": "output",
  "complete_directory": "complete",
  "winrm_username": "vagrant",
  "winrm_password": "vagrant",
  "ssh_username": "rocketskates",
  "ssh_password": "RocketSkates"
}

Note

The above example may not be the most up to date set of variables that are available to override in the JSON files. Please see the file named variables.json in the packer directory for more recent options.

Most notably - the output_directory and complete_directory should be located on a filesystem with sufficient space for the builds. Windows builds can take MASSIVE GOBS of disk space - basically plan for a minimum of 4x the disk_size variable setting to be completely safe.