EB Custom Platform without default VPC fails - amazon-web-services

Question

I'm building up a custom platform to run our application. We have default VPC deleted, so according to the documentation I have to specify the VPC and subnet id almost everywhere. So the command I run for ebp looks like following:
ebp create -v --vpc.id vpc-xxxxxxx --vpc.subnets subnet-xxxxxx --vpc.publicip{code}
The above spins up the pcakcer environment without any issue however when the packer start to build an instance I'm getting the following error:
2017-12-07 18:07:05 UTC+0100 ERROR [Instance: i-00f376be9fc2fea34] Command failed on instance. Return code: 1 Output: 'packer build' failed, the build log has been saved to '/var/log/packer-builder/XXX1.0.19-builder.log'. Hook /opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/packerbuild/build.rb failed. For more detail, check /var/log/eb-activity.log using console or EB CLI.
2017-12-07 18:06:55 UTC+0100 ERROR 'packer build' failed, the build log has been saved to '/var/log/packer-builder/XXX:1.0.19-builder.log'
2017-12-07 18:06:55 UTC+0100 ERROR Packer failed with error: '--> HVM AMI builder: VPCIdNotSpecified: No default VPC for this user status code: 400, request id: 28d94e8c-e24d-440f-9c64-88826e042e9d'{code}
Both the template and the platform.yaml specify vpc_id and subnet id, however this is not taken into account by packer.
platform.yaml:
version: "1.0"
provisioner:
type: packer
template: tomcat_platform.json
flavor: ubuntu1604
metadata:
maintainer: <Enter your contact details here>
description: Ubuntu running Tomcat
operating_system_name: Ubuntu Server
operating_system_version: 16.04 LTS
programming_language_name: Java
programming_language_version: 8
framework_name: Tomcat
framework_version: 7
app_server_name: "none"
app_server_version: "none"
option_definitions:
- namespace: "aws:elasticbeanstalk:container:custom:application"
option_name: "TOMCAT_START"
description: "Default application startup command"
default_value: ""
option_settings:
- namespace: "aws:ec2:vpc"
option_name: "VPCId"
value: "vpc-xxxxxxx"
- namespace: "aws:ec2:vpc"
option_name: "Subnets"
value: "subnet-xxxxxxx"
- namespace: "aws:elb:listener:80"
option_name: "InstancePort"
value: "8080"
- namespace: "aws:elasticbeanstalk:application"
option_name: "Application Healthcheck URL"
value: "TCP:8080"
tomcat_platform.json:
{
"variables": {
"platform_name": "{{env `AWS_EB_PLATFORM_NAME`}}",
"platform_version": "{{env `AWS_EB_PLATFORM_VERSION`}}",
"platform_arn": "{{env `AWS_EB_PLATFORM_ARN`}}"
},
"builders": [
{
"type": "amazon-ebs",
"region": "eu-west-1",
"source_ami": "ami-8fd760f6",
"instance_type": "t2.micro",
"ami_virtualization_type": "hvm",
"ssh_username": "admin",
"ami_name": "Tomcat running on Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS (built on {{isotime \"20060102150405\"}})",
"ami_description": "Tomcat running on Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS (built on {{isotime \"20060102150405\"}})",
"vpc_id": "vpc-xxxxxx",
"subnet_id": "subnet-xxxxxx",
"associate_public_ip_address": "true",
"tags": {
"eb_platform_name": "{{user `platform_name`}}",
"eb_platform_version": "{{user `platform_version`}}",
"eb_platform_arn": "{{user `platform_arn`}}"
}
}
],
"provisioners": [
{
"type": "file",
"source": "builder",
"destination": "/tmp/"
},
{
"type": "shell",
"execute_command": "chmod +x {{ .Path }}; {{ .Vars }} sudo {{ .Path }}",
"scripts": [
"builder/builder.sh"
]
}
]
}
Appreciate any idea on how to make this work as expected. I found couple of issues with the Packer, but seems to be resolved on their side so the documentation just says that the template must specify target VPC and Subnet.

Answer 1

The AWS documentation is a little misleading in this instance. You do need a default VPC in order to create a custom platform. From what I've seen, this is because the VPC flags that you are passing in to the ebp create command aren't passed along to the packer process that actually builds the platform.
To get around the error, you can just create a new default VPC that you just use for custom platform creation.

Answer 2

Packer looks for a default VPC (default behavior of Packer) while creating the resources required for building a custom platform which includes launching an EC2 instance, creating a Security Group etc., However, if a default VPC is not present in the region (for example, if it is deleted), Packer Build Task would fail with the following error:
Packer failed with error: '--> HVM AMI builder: VPCIdNotSpecified: No default VPC for this user status code: 400, request id: xyx-yxyx-xyx'
To fix this error, use the following attributes in the "builders" section of the 'template.json' file for packer to use a custom VPC and Subnets while creating the resources :
▸ vpc_id
▸ subnet_id