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content/blog/sharedpackerterraformconfig.md

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+---
+title: "Shared Packer & Terraform Config"
+date: 2020-05-08T22:59:30-04:00
+draft: false
+tags: []
+---
+
+You might have noticed from my last two posts on [Packer](https://brandonrozek.com/blog/snapshotswithpacker/) and [Terraform](https://brandonrozek.com/blog/autodeployterraform/) that the configuration files are highly similar. In fact, we can trick them into sharing a configuration file!
+
+## Shared Configuration
+
+First let's create a file we'll call `config` that contains all our assignments. Here is an example configuration:
+
+```
+base_system_image = "ubuntu-20-04-x64"
+region = "nyc3"
+size = "512mb"
+domain = "example.com"
+subdomain = "temp"
+
+# Secrets
+do_token = "DO-TOKEN-HERE"
+key_name = "KEY-NAME-ON-DO"
+```
+
+Then we'll create a file named `variables.hcl` that contains the type definitions
+
+```
+variable "do_token" {
+  type = string
+}
+
+variable "base_system_image" {
+  type = string
+}
+
+variable "domain" {
+  type = string
+}
+
+variable "key_name" {
+  type = string
+}
+
+variable "subdomain" {
+  type = string
+}
+
+variable "region" {
+  type = string
+}
+
+variable "size" {
+  type = string
+}
+```
+
+## Packer
+
+Now to trick Packer into reading the configuration files we need to:
+
+- map `variables.auto.pkrvars.hcl` to `config`
+- map `variables.pkr.hcl` to `variables.hcl`
+
+We can do this with symbolic links
+
+```bash
+ln -s config variables.auto.pkrvars.hcl
+ln -s variables.hcl variables.pkr.hcl
+```
+
+## Terraform
+
+To trick Terraform into reading the configuration files we need to:
+
+- map `terraform.tfvars ` to `config`
+- map `variables.tf` to `variables.hcl`
+
+As before, we can do this with symbolic links
+
+```bash
+ln -s config terraform.tfvars
+ln -s variables.hcl variables.tf
+```
+