Create machine images with Packer

This project creates machine images with a full Graylog stack installed.

Requirements

You need a recent packer version, get it here. To set your local properties copy the packerrc.sh.example to packerrc.sh and fill in the right values for your environment. Before you run packer source the packerrc.sh in your terminal.

$ cd packer
$ . packerrc.sh
$ packer build aws.json

This e.g. creates an Amazon AMI for you.

Usage

We install in all machine images our Omnibus package that comes with the graylog-ctl command. After spinning up the VM you have to login with the ubuntu user and execute at least

$ sudo graylog-ctl reconfigure

This will setup your Graylog installation and start all services. You can reach the web interface by pointing your browser to the IP of the appliance: http://<IP address>:9000

The default login is Username: admin Password: admin. You can change the admin password:

$ sudo graylog-ctl set-admin-password !SeCreTPasSwOrD?
$ sudo graylog-ctl reconfigure

Noticeable Options

AWS

Parameter	Value
type	Choose AWS storage type, EBS works fine for the beginning
ami_groups	'all' means publicly available
ami_regions	Array of availability zones to copy the image after creation

Virtualbox

Parameter	Value
disk_size	Set the maximum disk size for the image
modifyvm --memory	RAM size
modifyvm --cpus	Number of CPUs
modifyvm --natpf1	Default port forwards