Automating Image Creation with HashiCorp Packer for DevOps

Course Overview

Updated in May 2025. This course now features Coursera Coach! A smarter way to learn with interactive, real-time conversations that help you test your knowledge, challenge assumptions, and deepen your understanding as you progress through the course. Unlock the power of HashiCorp Packer to automate image creation for cloud and on-prem environments. This course provides a deep dive into Packer's architecture, installation, and workflow, giving you hands-on experience in building, configuring, and optimizing machine images across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and VMware. You'll start with the core concepts of Packer, including templates, command-line usage, and workflow automation. Then, you'll explore builders, variables, provisioners, and post-processors, understanding how Packer integrates seamlessly with modern DevOps workflows. You'll gain practical experience through hands-on labs that demonstrate building multi-cloud, multi-region, and OS-specific images. The course also covers advanced integrations with Terraform, Ansible, Vault, and GitLab CI/CD, showcasing how Packer fits into a broader DevOps pipeline. You'll also dive into troubleshooting techniques like debugging and breakpoints, ensuring you can resolve issues efficiently. Ideal for DevOps engineers, cloud architects, and system administrators, this course assumes basic familiarity with infrastructure as code (IaC) concepts, cloud platforms, and command-line usage. Whether you're new to Packer or looking to refine your skills, this course will elevate your automation expertise.