In AWS AMI with Amazon Linux 2023, the /home/ec2-user/.cache path is missing by default

Packer
1

Hello,
We are using packer with a build.pkr.hcl file to build an AWS AMI EC2 image based on the AWS Amazon Linux 2023 (not Amazon Linux 2).

The build block is:

build {
  sources = ["source.amazon-ebs.vf_pcs_al2023_eks"]

  provisioner "shell" {
    inline = [
      "echo 'Sleeping for 30 seconds to give the AMIs enough time to initialize (otherwise, packages may fail to install).'",
      "sleep 30",
      "echo 'Installing AWS CLI'",
      "sudo yum update -y && sudo yum install -y aws-cli unzip perl-Digest-SHA jq"
    ]
    remote_folder = "/home/ec2-user/.cache"
  }

When we execute the build.pkr.hcl we get the error:

null_resource.packer_build: Still creating… [2m20s elapsed]
null_resource.packer_build (local-exec): amazon-ebs.vf_pcs_al2023_eks: Port 8833 opened for sessionId i-02a…0561-pvepujtqkk2c2z3exlxhvcfpiq.
null_resource.packer_build (local-exec): amazon-ebs.vf_pcs_al2023_eks: Waiting for connections…
null_resource.packer_build (local-exec): amazon-ebs.vf_pcs_al2023_eks: Connection accepted for session [i-02a…0561-pvepujtqkk2c2z3exlxhvcfpiq]
null_resource.packer_build (local-exec): ==> amazon-ebs.vf_pcs_al2023_eks: Connected to SSH!
null_resource.packer_build (local-exec): ==> amazon-ebs.vf_pcs_al2023_eks: Provisioning with shell script: /tmp/packer-shell1109162450
null_resource.packer_build (local-exec): ==> amazon-ebs.vf_pcs_al2023_eks: chmod: cannot access ‘/home/ec2-user/.cache/script_3273.sh’: Not a directory
null_resource.packer_build (local-exec): ==> amazon-ebs.vf_pcs_al2023_eks: bash: line 1: /home/ec2-user/.cache/script_3273.sh: Not a directory

I launched a test EC2 instance with AL2023 and indeed there is no .cache directory in the /home/ec2-user/ anymore. I checked in an EC2 instance with AL2 from 2024 and there is a .cache directory in /home/ec2-user/ .

I added the line to create this directory:

  provisioner "shell" {
    inline = [
      "echo 'Sleeping for 30 seconds to give the AMIs enough time to initialize (otherwise, packages may fail to install).'",
      "sleep 30",
      "mkdir /home/${var.ec2_user_source}/.cache",

But it seems the packer build block wants to run /home/ec2-user/.cache/script_3273.sh before the inline bash script from the provisioner “shell” inline block.

The remote_folder is set to "/home/ec2-user/.cache" as you can see in the build block above.

Will changing the remote_folder to /home/ec2-user/ will help in this case?

PS: At this moment I am not sure whether the /home/ec2-user/.cache directory was removed in AL2023 or it is created by our internal AMI team which is responsabile for AMI hardening. I will confirm with them.

Thank you.