Can Packer build an AMI locally (that is, without connecting to AWS)?

Question

Assume I have some special use-case. Please no answers like "why do you want to do this?" Simply put, is this supported behavior, and if so, could you point me to the relevant documentation?

Answer 1

You can import into AWS for the following image formats:

• Open Virtualization Archive (OVA)
• Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK)
• Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX)
• Raw

Packer supports:

• vmware which can be exported as an OVF template.
• hyper-v which can be exported as virtual machine or virtual hard disks.

AWS provides further instructions on how to import your VM as image here.