Provisioner log message display method is confusing because it seems like an error message

[ghost]

Packer version: 1.4.2

Although it's a small, minor problem, I often feel uncomfortable because I use Packer frequently so I register an issue here as a feature request.

As shown in the attached screenshot, the output of the scripts registered in Provision step is displayed in red. It is difficult to distinguish it from real errors, because all the text is displayed in red like an error message, even if it is not an error.

Is it possible to make appropriate improvements?

[SwampDragons]

I believe it's shown in red because it's coming through the stderr pipe, but I'll have to take a closer look to be sure.

[SwampDragons]

Yep, verified that this is happening because calling set -x inside your bash script streams the executed commands to stderr, not stdout. Packer makes red all the output received through the stderr pipe. You can redirect your script's stderr to stdout to fix this using the execute_command option in the shell-local provisioner:

"execute_command": ["/bin/sh", "-c", "{{.Vars}} {{.Script}} 2>&1"],

But be warned that'll pipe "real" errors to stdout as well, so you won't get red even when you're expecting it.

Or, you could remove the set -x from the script you're running.

I don't consider the current behavior a bug, so I'm going to close, but I hope the provided workaround makes you less anxious :)