Hi, Been tasked with cleaning up packer code to remove duplication of explicit values in our working build .json files - and use a few general *var-files* that will contain the relevant DEV, TEST and PROD instance types, vpc details, disk sizes etc.
One of the builders sections we use are *tags *(and *run_tags*) of the format: "run_tags": { "Environment": "DEV", "Application": "Dave", "Tier": "Web App", "Function": "Dev Dave Web App", "Version": "1.0", "CostCentre": "0300 3246", "BusinessUnit": "AppServices", "Project": "DaveMigration to AWS", "Product": "IIS Server for Dave", "SupportEmail": "d...@dave.com", "ComplianceDomain": "YES", "DataClass": "5", "ProvisionedBy": "Packer", "ProvisionedWho": "d...@dave.com", "ProjectName": "Dave", "Name": "Dave Dev Web Box" }, I'm not sure if or how I can include these arrays in a var-file. Ideally the build file wants to refer to these as some kind of user variable e.g. in line with the usual ones: "builders": [{ "type": "amazon-ebs", "region": "{{ user `DEV_server_region`}}", "source_ami": "{{ user `DEV_server_source_ami`}}", * "tags": "{{ user `DEV_dave_tags`}}", <== WHATEVER FORMAT THIS SHOULD BE IN FOR A TAG BLOCK (Array?)* "instance_type": "{{ user `DEV_server_instance_type`}}", "winrm_use_ssl": true, "winrm_insecure": true }], I've tried to capture these tag arrays in the var-file as so (snippet): ... "PROD_server_user_data_file": "./USERDATA2.0.txt", "CA_server_run_tags": [{ "Environment": "DEV", "Application": "Dave", "Tier": "Web App", "Function": "Dev Dave Web App", "Version": "1.0", "CostCentre": "0300 3246", "BusinessUnit": "AppServices", "Project": "DaveMigration to AWS", "Product": "IIS Server for Dave", "SupportEmail": "d...@dave.com", "ComplianceDomain": "YES", "DataClass": "5", "ProvisionedBy": "Packer", "ProvisionedWho": "d...@dave.com", "ProjectName": "Dave", "Name": "Dave Dev Web Box" }] But I get: packer validate -var-file .\dave_vars.json .\build_var_test_Dave.json invalid value ".\\dave_vars.json" for flag -var-file: Error reading variables in '.\dave_vars.json': json: cannot unmarshal array into Go value of type string Can someone please advise on how best to include (if possible) these tags and run_tags arrays into the var-file *and* refer to the resulting user array variable properly in the builder file? Thanks, Jimster -- This mailing list is governed under the HashiCorp Community Guidelines - https://www.hashicorp.com/community-guidelines.html. Behavior in violation of those guidelines may result in your removal from this mailing list. GitHub Issues: https://github.com/mitchellh/packer/issues IRC: #packer-tool on Freenode --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Packer" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to packer-tool+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/packer-tool/8975abcb-e431-4005-8e76-b40f6b048e8f%40googlegroups.com.