# Packer source blocks unable to validate in packer 1.11.2

**URL:** <https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853>\
**Category:** Packer\
**Created:** [December 8, 2024, 9:35pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853 "2024-12-08T21:35:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![queglay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/queglay/32/1858_2.png) [@queglay](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/queglay)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2024, 9:35pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853/1 "2024-12-08T21:35:10Z")

</div>

Following the [docs](https://developer.hashicorp.com/packer/docs/templates/hcl_templates/blocks/build/source),  
I’m trying to validate my packer template after updating to 1.11.2 to use the source blocks, but something is wrong and its not clear to me what. I couldn’t figure out from the documentation how we would make sources (target images) dynamic. In this example, depending on the image we have to change the user we connect as to perform other operations, like create a new user.

This is a reduced example which targets different source images with different users to make a new user using ansible.

```auto
source "users" "newuser" {
  name = "create_users"

  syscontrol_gid = local.syscontrol_gid

  provisioner "ansible" { # Add user deployuser
    playbook_file = "./ansible/newuser.yaml"
    user = "rocky"
    extra_arguments = [
      "-v",
      "--extra-vars",
      "variable_user=${source.variable_user} sudo=true passwordless_sudo=true add_to_group_syscontrol=${source.add_to_group_syscontrol} variable_connect_as_user=${source.variable_connect_as_user} variable_uid=${source.variable_uid} syscontrol_gid=${source.syscontrol_gid} variable_host=default delegate_host=localhost"
    ]
    collections_path = "./ansible/collections"
    roles_path = "./ansible/roles"
    ansible_env_vars = ["ANSIBLE_CONFIG=ansible/ansible.cfg"]
    galaxy_file = "./requirements.yml"
    only = source.only
  }
}

build {

  source "users.newuser" {
    variable_user = "deployuser"
    variable_uid = local.deployuser_uid
    add_to_group_syscontrol = true
    variable_connect_as_user = "rocky"
    only = [
      "amazon-ebs.rocky8-rendernode-ami",
    ]
  }

  source "users.newuser" {
    variable_user = "deployuser"
    variable_uid = local.deployuser_uid
    add_to_group_syscontrol = true
    variable_connect_as_user = "ec2-user"
    only = [
      "amazon-ebs.amznlnx2023-rendernode-ami",
    ]
  }
}

```

These are the errors I get from packer validate, it seems to repeat itself unnecessarily as well.

```auto

Error: missing source reference

  on ./firehawk-ami.pkr.hcl line 905:
  (source code not available)

a build block must reference at least one source to be built

Error: Unknown source type users

  on ./firehawk-ami.pkr.hcl line 852:
  (source code not available)

The source users is unknown by Packer, and is likely part of a plugin that is
not installed.
You may find the needed plugin along with installation instructions documented
on the Packer integrations page.

https://developer.hashicorp.com/packer/integrations?filter=users

Error: Unknown source type users

  on ./firehawk-ami.pkr.hcl line 852:
  (source code not available)

The source users is unknown by Packer, and is likely part of a plugin that is
not installed.
You may find the needed plugin along with installation instructions documented
on the Packer integrations page.

https://developer.hashicorp.com/packer/integrations?filter=users

Error: Unknown source type users

  on ./firehawk-ami.pkr.hcl line 852:
  (source code not available)

The source users is unknown by Packer, and is likely part of a plugin that is
not installed.
You may find the needed plugin along with installation instructions documented
on the Packer integrations page.

https://developer.hashicorp.com/packer/integrations?filter=users

Error: Unknown source type users

  on ./firehawk-ami.pkr.hcl line 852:
  (source code not available)

The source users is unknown by Packer, and is likely part of a plugin that is
not installed.
You may find the needed plugin along with installation instructions documented
on the Packer integrations page.

https://developer.hashicorp.com/packer/integrations?filter=users

Error: Unknown source type users

  on ./firehawk-ami.pkr.hcl line 852:
  (source code not available)

The source users is unknown by Packer, and is likely part of a plugin that is
not installed.
You may find the needed plugin along with installation instructions documented
on the Packer integrations page.

https://developer.hashicorp.com/packer/integrations?filter=users

```

I’m also finding the HCL plugin for vscode is not linting correctly and errors for ever build bock you attempt to create.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lbajolet-hashicorp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/lbajolet-hashicorp/32/28193_2.png) [@lbajolet-hashicorp](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/lbajolet-hashicorp)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2024, 8:02pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853/2 "2024-12-09T20:02:16Z")

</div>

Hi @queglay,

There are multiple things that catch my eye in there, so please bear with me.

Regarding your `source` definition, they shouldn’t contain `provisioner` blocks, these can only be part of a `build` block so that would be one first error here.  
As for your `only` definition, it is not supported as part of a source iirc, you can only have those as part of `provisioner` and `post-processor`, so you can have one `build` block with those provisioners, and they can selectively execute based on the builder being run.

The error message you get is the type of `source` not existing, so this is a matter of which builder you want to use for running this build, I don’t know which plugin you expect to use, I don’t know if there’s a plugin called `users`, but it could be a community plugin that I don’t know about.

The message you get is indeed duplicated a few times, I assume because each source block redefined is referencing the same base source, which is the cause of the problem. Not sure how we can trivially fix this one, but there might be something we can do to help.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![queglay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/queglay/32/1858_2.png) [@queglay](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/queglay)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2024, 8:07pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853/3 "2024-12-09T20:07:39Z")

</div>

I also tried something more basic and tried naming them with null

```auto
source "null" "newuser" {
  name = "create_users"
  syscontrol_gid = local.syscontrol_gid

  provisioner "ansible" { # Add user deployuser
    playbook_file = "./ansible/newuser.yaml"
    user = "rocky"
    extra_arguments = [
      "-v",
      "--extra-vars",
      "variable_user=${source.variable_user} sudo=true passwordless_sudo=true add_to_group_syscontrol=${source.add_to_group_syscontrol} variable_connect_as_user=${source.variable_connect_as_user} variable_uid=${source.variable_uid} syscontrol_gid=${source.syscontrol_gid} variable_host=default delegate_host=localhost"
    ]
    collections_path = "./ansible/collections"
    roles_path = "./ansible/roles"
    ansible_env_vars = ["ANSIBLE_CONFIG=ansible/ansible.cfg"]
    galaxy_file = "./requirements.yml"
    only = source.only
  }
}

build {
  source "source.null.newuser" {
    variable_user = "deployuser"
    variable_uid = local.deployuser_uid
    add_to_group_syscontrol = true
    variable_connect_as_user = "rocky"
    only = [
      "amazon-ebs.rocky8-rendernode-ami",
    ]
  }
}

```

> [@lbajolet-hashicorp](#):
>
> users

Thanks for your reply @lbajolet-hashicorp ,  
Is it not possible to reuse a provisioner block or ansible plugin at all with this feature? The only plugin I’m hoping to reuse here is Ansible. I have a lot of duplicate usage of this in my templates so thats the end goal I’m hoping might be possible.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lbajolet-hashicorp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/lbajolet-hashicorp/32/28193_2.png) [@lbajolet-hashicorp](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/lbajolet-hashicorp)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2024, 8:24pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853/4 "2024-12-09T20:24:02Z")

</div>

I will say that depends on what you want 🙂

If you have the quasi-exact same provisioner used for a bunch of different builds, you can probably play with `dynamic provisioner`, so that in your `build` block you can have a provisioner definition that you can change values for depending on a variable/local/other.  
This would allow you to have effectively one `build` block, with one `provisioner` definition, which would dynamically unroll to a list of provisioners.

It could be tricky to pull off to be honest, and not everything might be possible, but looking at your sample and what you’re trying to do, this might actually work.

Feel free to ping again if you need more help!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![queglay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/queglay/32/1858_2.png) [@queglay](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/queglay)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2024, 8:24pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853/5 "2024-12-09T20:24:14Z")

</div>

I managed to get it to work. The documentation says these blocks are essentially merged, and it is possible to define only as a variable. This was my implementation in the end:

```auto

source "null" "newuser" {
  name = "create_users"
  syscontrol_gid = local.syscontrol_gid

  provisioner "ansible" { # Add user deployuser
    playbook_file = "./ansible/newuser.yaml"
    user = "rocky"
    extra_arguments = [
      "-v",
      "--extra-vars",
      "variable_user=${source.variable_user} sudo=true passwordless_sudo=true add_to_group_syscontrol=${source.add_to_group_syscontrol} variable_connect_as_user=${source.variable_connect_as_user} variable_uid=${source.variable_uid} syscontrol_gid=${source.syscontrol_gid} variable_host=default delegate_host=localhost"
    ]
    collections_path = "./ansible/collections"
    roles_path = "./ansible/roles"
    ansible_env_vars = ["ANSIBLE_CONFIG=ansible/ansible.cfg"]
    galaxy_file = "./requirements.yml"
    only = source.only
  }
}

build {
  source "source.null.newuser" {
    variable_user = "deployuser"
    variable_uid = local.deployuser_uid
    add_to_group_syscontrol = true
    variable_connect_as_user = "rocky"
    only = [
      "amazon-ebs.rocky8-rendernode-ami",
    ]
  }

  source "source.null.newuser" {
    variable_user = "deployuser"
    variable_uid = local.deployuser_uid
    add_to_group_syscontrol = true
    variable_connect_as_user = "ec2-user"
    only = [
      "amazon-ebs.amznlnx2023-rendernode-ami",
    ]
  }

  source "source.null.newuser" {
    variable_user = "deadlineuser"
    variable_uid = local.deadlineuser_uid
    add_to_group_syscontrol = false
    variable_connect_as_user = "rocky"
    only = [
      "amazon-ebs.rocky8-rendernode-ami",
    ]
  }

  source "source.null.newuser" {
    variable_user = "deadlineuser"
    variable_uid = local.deadlineuser_uid
    add_to_group_syscontrol = false
    variable_connect_as_user = "ec2-user"
    only = [
      "amazon-ebs.amznlnx2023-rendernode-ami",
    ]
  }

  source "source.null.newuser" {
    variable_user = "deadlineuser"
    variable_uid = local.deadlineuser_uid
    add_to_group_syscontrol = false
    variable_connect_as_user = "ubuntu"
    only = [
      "amazon-ebs.deadline-db-ubuntu18-ami",
    ]
  }
}

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![queglay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/queglay/32/1858_2.png) [@queglay](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/queglay)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2024, 9:10pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853/6 "2024-12-09T21:10:28Z")

</div>

nope, I spoke to soon, this just ran silently. I’m gonna dig into this a bit since at least its not failing completely.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![queglay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/queglay/32/1858_2.png) [@queglay](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/queglay)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2024, 9:37pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853/7 "2024-12-09T21:37:22Z")

</div>

I realised this should be able to be simpler, since the ssh username is defined in the amazon-ebs source blocks. according to the [docs](https://developer.hashicorp.com/packer/docs/templates/hcl_templates/blocks/source), ssh\_username should be able to be referenced like I’m doing below, but this does not work if I have an ansible provisioner in a build block. Removing the source.ssh\_username works fine though.

```auto
  provisioner "ansible" { # Add user deployuser
    playbook_file = "./ansible/newuser.yaml"
    user = "${source.ssh_username}"
    extra_arguments = [
      "-v",
      "--extra-vars",
      "variable_user=deployuser sudo=true passwordless_sudo=true add_to_group_syscontrol=true variable_connect_as_user=${source.ssh_username} variable_uid=${local.deployuser_uid} syscontrol_gid=${local.syscontrol_gid} variable_host=default delegate_host=localhost"
    ]
    collections_path = "./ansible/collections"
    roles_path = "./ansible/roles"
    ansible_env_vars = ["ANSIBLE_CONFIG=ansible/ansible.cfg"]
    galaxy_file = "./requirements.yml"
    only = [
      "amazon-ebs.rocky8-rendernode-ami",
      "amazon-ebs.amznlnx2023-rendernode-ami",
      "amazon-ebs.deadline-db-ubuntu18-ami",
    ]
  }

```

we get:

```auto
Error: Failed preparing provisioner-block "ansible" ""

  on /tmp/firehawk-infra/modules/packer-firehawk-amis/modules/firehawk-ami/firehawk-ami.pkr.hcl line 841:
  (source code not available)

/tmp/firehawk-infra/modules/packer-firehawk-amis/modules/firehawk-ami/firehawk-ami.pkr.hcl:843,30-43:
Unsupported attribute; This object does not have an attribute named
"ssh_username"., and 1 other diagnostic(s)

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![queglay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/queglay/32/1858_2.png) [@queglay](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/queglay)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2024, 9:56pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853/8 "2024-12-09T21:56:30Z")

</div>

And if I try to do this in the build block (and remove the var from the amazon-ebs source)

```auto
  source "amazon-ebs.rocky8-ami" {
    ssh_username = "rocky"
  }
  source "amazon-ebs.rocky8-rendernode-ami" {
    ssh_username = "rocky"
  }
  source "amazon-ebs.amznlnx2023-ami" {
    ssh_username = "ec2-user"
  }
  source "amazon-ebs.amznlnx2023-rendernode-ami" {
    ssh_username = "ec2-user"
  }
  source "amazon-ebs.ubuntu18-ami" {
    ssh_username = "ubuntu"
  }
  source "amazon-ebs.deadline-db-ubuntu18-ami" {
    ssh_username = "ubuntu"
  }

```

Ill get this:

```auto
Error: Failed preparing provisioner-block "ansible" ""

  on /tmp/firehawk-infra/modules/packer-firehawk-amis/modules/firehawk-ami/firehawk-ami.pkr.hcl line 859:
  (source code not available)

/tmp/firehawk-infra/modules/packer-firehawk-amis/modules/firehawk-ami/firehawk-ami.pkr.hcl:865,128-141:
Unsupported attribute; This object does not have an attribute named
"ssh_username"., and 1 other diagnostic(s)

```

I dont understand why both of these examples dont work.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![queglay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/queglay/32/1858_2.png) [@queglay](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/queglay)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2024, 7:22pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853/9 "2024-12-10T19:22:25Z")

</div>

I thought I’d try another example that should work according to the docs, by specifying a new var name when the source is defined at the top of the build block.

```auto
build {

  source "amazon-ebs.rocky8-ami" {
    connection_user = "rocky"
  }
  source "amazon-ebs.rocky8-rendernode-ami" {
    connection_user = "rocky"
  }
  source "amazon-ebs.amznlnx2023-ami" {
    connection_user = "ec2-user"
  }
  source "amazon-ebs.amznlnx2023-rendernode-ami" {
    connection_user = "ec2-user"
  }
  source "amazon-ebs.ubuntu18-ami" {
    connection_user = "ubuntu"
  }
  source "amazon-ebs.deadline-db-ubuntu18-ami" {
    connection_user = "ubuntu"
  }

```

The intention then would be for me to use that, but I get:

```auto
Installed plugin github.com/hashicorp/amazon v1.3.3 in "/root/.config/packer/plugins/github.com/hashicorp/amazon/packer-plugin-amazon_v1.3.3_x5.0_linux_amd64"
Installed plugin github.com/hashicorp/ansible v1.1.2 in "/root/.config/packer/plugins/github.com/hashicorp/ansible/packer-plugin-ansible_v1.1.2_x5.0_linux_amd64"
Error: Unsupported argument

  on /tmp/firehawk-infra/modules/packer-firehawk-amis/modules/firehawk-ami/firehawk-ami.pkr.hcl line 529:
  (source code not available)

An argument named "connection_user" is not expected here.

```

So is it not possible to create reusable code blocks or have variables per source block in packer? The documentation led me to beleive this should be possible.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![queglay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/queglay/32/1858_2.png) [@queglay](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/queglay)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2024, 7:31pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853/10 "2024-12-10T19:31:15Z")

</div>

I created a ticket on github for two of the above issues.

> <https://github.com/hashicorp/packer/issues/13225>
>
> \#### Community Note
> 
> \* Please vote on this issue by adding a 👍 \[reaction\](http…s://blog.github.com/2016-03-10-add-reactions-to-pull-requests-issues-and-comments/) to the original issue to help the community and maintainers prioritize this request
> \* Please do not leave "+1" or other comments that do not add relevant new information or questions, they generate extra noise for issue followers and do not help prioritize the request
> \* If you are interested in working on this issue or have submitted a pull request, please leave a comment
> 
> 
> 
> \#### Description
> 
> These docs suggest that you can access variables defined on sources later in build blocks.
> https://developer.hashicorp.com/packer/docs/templates/hcl\_templates/blocks/source
> 
> But from all the examples in this discussion thread it appears you cannot do this with the amazon-ebs plugin.
> https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/packer-source-blocks-unable-to-validate-in-packer-1-11-2/71853/9
> 
> We cannot for example reference ssh\_username in an ansible plugin provisioner which means we repeat ourselves.
> 
> It is also not possible to define extra source variables unless the plugin uses them. This would be very helpful.
> 
> \#### Use Case(s)
> 
> To be able to reuse code without repe
> 
> \#### Potential configuration
> 
> \`\`\`
> \`\`\`
> 
> \#### Potential References