Only and Except
only
and except
are keywords used to filter what runs in your Packer build,
they can be seen as a command line argument:
-except=foo,bar,baz
- Run all the builds and post-processors except those with the given comma-separated names. Build and post-processor names by default are their type, unless a specificname
attribute is specified within the configuration. Any post-processor following a skipped post-processor will not run. Because post-processors can be nested in arrays a different post-processor chain can still run. A post-processor with an empty name will be ignored.
-only=foo,bar,baz
- Only run the builds with the given comma-separated names. Build names by default are their type, unless a specificname
attribute is specified within the configuration.-only
does not apply to post-processors.
They can also be seen in a template to run or skip provisioners and/or post-processors for a specific source:
build { name = "my_build" sources [ "source.amazon-ebs.first-example", ] source "source.amazon-ebs.second-example" { // setting the name field allows to rename the source only for this build // section. name = "second-example-local-name" } provisioner "shell-local" { only = ["source.amazon-ebs.first-example"] inline = ["echo I will only run for the second example source"] } provisioner "shell-local" { except = ["source.amazon-ebs.second-example-local-name"] inline = ["echo I will never run for the second example source"] }} build { sources [ "source.amazon-ebs.third-example", ]} # this file will result in Packer creating three builds named:# my_build.amazon-ebs.first-example# my_build.amazon-ebs.second-example# amazon-ebs.third-example
Note that cli arguments can be used with a glob operator, using the previous configuration:
packer build -only 'my_build.*' dir
: will only run the builds in blocks namedmy_build
.packer build -only '*.amazon-ebs.*' dir
: will only run the builds with a source of typeamazon-ebs
.packer build -only '*.second-example-local-name' dir
: will only run that specifically named build.
Note: In the cli only
and except
will match agains build names (for
example:my_build.amazon-ebs.first-example
) but in a provisioner they will
match on the source type (for example:source.amazon-ebs.third-example
).