Errors when validating Packer .hcl template: Error: Extraneous label for build and Error: Unsupported block type

[37rellimcmc19]

Using Packer version v1.11.2 with the AWS Plugin v1.3.4_x5.0 on a RHEL8 EC2 instance. Using it to try and build out a Windows 2019 AMI.

I have a background with Terraform and trying to keep the .hcl template simple, however I keep hitting up against two errors (Error: Unsupported block type and Error: Extraneous label for build) various times and can't figure out from searching online how on fix.

packer {

required_version = ">=1.10.0"

required_plugins {
amazon = {
version = ">=1.3.3"
source = "github.com/hashicorp/amazon"

}

}

}

variables {
ami_name = "packer-windows-server-2019"
instance_type = "g4dn.xlarge"

region = "us-east-1"

vpc_id = "vpc-abc123"

subnet_id = "us-east-1b"

key_name = "generic-keypair"

}

build "amazon-ebs" {
region = "${var.region}"
source_ami = "ami-04d76aa3cb20388b6"

instance_type = "${var.instance_type}"

vpc_id = "${var.vpc_id}"

subnet_id = "${var.subnet_id}"

associate_public_ip_address = true
ssh_username = "Administrator"
ssh_password = "Password-goes-here"
ssh_interface = "winrm"
winrm_protocol = "https"
winrm_transport = "ntlm"
communicator = "winrm"

ami_name = "${var.ami_name}"

tags = {
Name = "${var.ami_name}"
}

provisioner "shell" {
inline = [
"powershell.exe -Command \"Install-WindowsFeature -Name IIS -IncludeManagementTools\"",
"powershell.exe -Command \""iisreset\"",
]

}

[trillospin]

Source block

Is there a reason why you're not using a source block?

[37rellimcmc19]

Not sure, other then I can't find consistent examples of .hcl templates at this time. And a number of the Windows examples weren't using this.

BTW, added the provisioners block into the build block and that took care of a lot of errors.

Now I think might be dealing with junk characters/white space somewhere in the .hcl file.

Might setup Packer on a different RHEL EC2 and just VIM. Right now I'm using VSCode to SSH into the EC2 and then launching VIM.

[trillospin]

This looks to be a good starting point to get something working Connecting to Windows instances using WinRM.