Fully Automated GCP Image Builds with Packer - A Complete Solution
#Packer #GoogleCloud #GCP #InfrastructureAsCode #DevOps
Fully Automated GCP Image Builds with Packer - A Complete Solution
In this video, we walk through the complete process of building custom Linux and Windows images in Google Cloud using Packer.
We’ll start by creating a Linux image provisioned over SSH with Apache and a lightweight retro web interface. Then we’ll build a Windows image that installs Chrome and Firefox, applies Windows Updates, and is generalized using Sysprep. Unlike Azure, WinRM is not configured automatically in GCP, so we use a custom startup script and metadata to enable WinRM access and set a secure password.
To support remote provisioning, we also open TCP port 5986 through a firewall rule to allow WinRM connectivity.
You’ll also see how we:
Create a local 'packer' account on both images
Store credentials securely in a vault
Deploy the VMs from these custom images
Configure minimal firewall rules for secure access to SSH, RDP, and WinRM
By the end of this walkthrough, you’ll have a fully automated, reusable image build pipeline in Google Cloud that you can adapt for your own projects.
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📚 *Project Repository*: https://github.com/mamonaco1973/gcp-p...
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00:00 Introduction
03:26 Packer Workflow
07:33 Prerequisites
08:27 Build
11:45 Demo
16:55 GCP Issues