Communicators overview

Communicators are the mechanism Packer uses to upload files, execute scripts, etc. with the machine being created.

Communicators are configured within the builder section. Packer currently supports three kinds of communicators:

• none: Packer does not use a communicator and cannot use most provisioners.
• ssh: Packer establishes an SSH connection to the machine. This is usually the default.
• winrm: Packer establishes a WinRM connection.

In addition to the above, some builders have custom communicators they can use. For example, the Docker builder has a "docker" communicator that uses docker exec and docker cp to execute scripts and copy files.

For more details on how to use each communicator, click the links above to be taken to each communicator's page.