If you are new to packer, I would recommend reading the packer tutorial<\/a> first.<\/p>\n The packer configuration and scripts used in this guide are hosted on the Packer Templates GitHub Repository<\/a> under Here is our folder structure to build Java application AMI.<\/p>\n Step 1:<\/strong> Create a folder named scripts and create file named java.sh<\/strong> inside it with the following contents. It is debian based script. If you are using Amazon Linux or Redhat, update the commands accordingly.<\/p>\n Here are installing JRE and creating Step 2: <\/strong>Create a file named Here is the script explanation.<\/p>\n Now that we have all the Packer configurations ready, we can create the custom Java AMI using Packer.<\/p>\n Ensure you are in the directory where you have the First, let’s format and validate the packer template. So if there are any configuration issues, it will throw an error.<\/p>\n Now that we have a valid packer configuration file, let’s execute the following packer command to build the AMI.<\/p>\n On successful execution, you will see the created AMI Id output as shown below.<\/p>\n Also, the AMI Id gets stored in the Now that we have created the Java AMI, we can validate it by deploying a ec2 server with the newly created AMI.<\/p>\n I will pass a user data shell script to start the application jar that is backed into the AMI. Here is the minimal java startup command. Save it in a file namesd Following is the AWS Cli command to create ec2 server.<\/a> You need to replace the parameters highlighted in bold. scripts\/user-data.sh<\/strong> is the path of the user data script. Replace it with the path of your script file location.<\/p>\n Once the instance is launched, Java applications will take 2-3 minutes for startup. You can verify the application by visiting to With Packer you can follow Immutable infrastructure<\/a> model for applciation deployments. By building Java images backed with application jar file, you can easily deploy Java application son AWS ennvironents with the flexibility to change the Java startup parameters using ec2 user data.<\/p>\n If you are using Java applciation on AWS autoscalaing groups, packer is a great tool tp package the application jar in to AMI artifact in the CI\/CD process.<\/p>\n Also, check out the devops engineer guide<\/a> if you are starting your DevOps journey.<\/p>\nPrerequisites<\/h2>\n
\n
Packer Java AMI GitHub Repo<\/h2>\n
\/aws\/java<\/strong><\/code> directory. You can clone the repo to follow this guide.<\/p>\ngit clone https:\/\/github.com\/techiescamp\/packer-templates<\/code><\/pre>\nCreate Java Packer Configuration Files<\/h2>\n
java\n \u251c\u2500\u2500 java.pkr.hcl\n \u2514\u2500\u2500 scripts\n \u2514\u2500\u2500 java.sh\n \u2514\u2500\u2500 user-data.sh<\/code><\/pre>\n\n
java.pkr.hcl<\/code><\/strong> is the Packer configuration file (HCL format).<\/li>\njava.sh<\/code><\/strong> shell script in the scripts folder has the commands to install the latest JRE.<\/li>\nuser-data.sh<\/code><\/strong> shell script contains the java application startup command that will be used as an ec2 user data script when deploying the ec2 instance.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\/opt\/deployment<\/code><\/strong> \u00a0folder for jar file and \/var\/log\/apps<\/code><\/strong> folder to write the application log file.<\/p>\n#!\/bin\/bash\n\nset -e, -u, -x, -o pipefail\n\nsudo apt update -y\n\nsudo apt install openjdk-17-jre-headless -y\n\nsudo mkdir \/opt\/deployment\nsudo mkdir \/var\/log\/apps\n\nsudo chown -R $USER:$USER \/opt\/deployment\nsudo chown -R $USER:$USER \/var\/log\/apps<\/code><\/pre>\njava.pkr.hcl<\/strong><\/code> and copy the following contents.<\/p>\nvariable \"ami_id\" {\n type = string\n default = \"ami-017fecd1353bcc96e\"\n}\n\nlocals {\n app_name = \"pet-clinic-java\"\n}\n\nsource \"amazon-ebs\" \"java\" {\n ami_name = \"packer-${local.app_name}\"\n instance_type = \"t2.micro\"\n region = \"us-west-2\"\n source_ami = \"${var.ami_id}\"\n ssh_username = \"ubuntu\"\n tags = {\n Env = \"dev\"\n Name = \"packer-${local.app_name}\"\n }\n}\n\nbuild {\n\n sources = [\"source.amazon-ebs.java\"]\n\n provisioner \"shell\" {\n script = \"scripts\/java.sh\"\n }\n\n provisioner \"file\" {\n source = \"\/path\/to\/app.jar\"\n destination = \"\/opt\/deployment\/app.jar\"\n }\n\n post-processor \"manifest\" {\n output = \"manifest.json\"\n strip_path = true\n }\n}\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n
ami-017fecd1353bcc96e<\/code><\/strong>. Replace it with the required base image AMI ID.<\/li>\npet-clinic-java <\/code>with your app’s name.<\/li>\nssh_username \u00a0= \"ubuntu\"<\/code><\/strong> with ssh_username \u00a0= \"ec2-user\"<\/code><\/strong><\/li>\n\/opt\/deployment\/app.jar<\/strong><\/code><\/strong> location. Replace \/path\/to\/app.jar<\/strong><\/code> with the absolute path of the jar location.<\/li>\n java.sh<\/strong><\/code> shell script from the scripts folder.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nCreate Java Application AMI Using Packer<\/h2>\n
java.pkr.hcl<\/code><\/strong> file.<\/p>\npacker fmt java.pkr.hcl\npacker validate java.pkr.hcl<\/code><\/pre>\npacker build java.pkr.hcl<\/code><\/pre>\n![\"java](\"https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/5f\/2f\/5f2f4d20-2abf-4534-8d40-7aa233aedd43\/content\/images\/2025\/03\/image-10-47.png\")
<\/figure>\nmanifest.json<\/code><\/strong> file in the same directory. It gets created as part of the post-processor block. This is useful in CI\/CD pipelines where you want to parse the output AMI id to be used in the next pipeline state.<\/p>\n{\n \"builds\": [\n {\n \"name\": \"java\",\n \"builder_type\": \"amazon-ebs\",\n \"build_time\": 1669270824,\n \"files\": null,\n \"artifact_id\": \"us-west-2:ami-0cf25bbd911ec1d14\",\n \"packer_run_uuid\": \"2ed4531c-c0c6-2821-6448-e1e5791a238a\",\n \"custom_data\": null\n }\n ],\n \"last_run_uuid\": \"2ed4531c-c0c6-2821-6448-e1e5791a238a\"<\/code><\/pre>\nTest & Validate Java AMI<\/h2>\n
user-data.sh<\/code><\/strong><\/p>\n#!\/bin\/bash\nnohup java -jar \/opt\/deployment\/app.jar > \/var\/log\/apps\/app.log 2>&1 &<\/code><\/pre>\naws ec2 run-instances \\\n --image-id ami-0daa89240da066fe5 \\\n --count 1 \\\n --instance-type t2.micro \\\n --key-name techiescamp \\\n --security-group-ids sg-023b5f8e016ce08e1 \\\n --subnet-id subnet-0782c73ff7b32d7c2 \\\n --block-device-mappings \"[{\\\"DeviceName\\\":\\\"\/dev\/sdf\\\",\\\"Ebs\\\":{\\\"VolumeSize\\\":30,\\\"DeleteOnTermination\\\":false}}]\" \\\n --tag-specifications 'ResourceType=instance,Tags=[{Key=Name,Value=java-app-server}]' 'ResourceType=volume,Tags=[{Key=Name,Value=java-app-server-disk}]' \\\n --user-data file:\/\/scripts\/user-data.sh<\/code><\/pre>\nhttp:\/\/IP-ADDRESS:8080<\/strong><\/code>.<\/p>\nConclusion<\/h2>\n
\n