PowerShell at Windows container ignores errors

Hi Packer team,

Overview of the Issue

PowerShell provisioner ignores some type of errors although $ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop' is set and there is [INFO] 259 bytes written for 'stderr' log when docker builder and windows container is used. There is a related issue on PowerShell provisioner https://github.com/hashicorp/packer/issues/4916, however this issue can be solved by putting $ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop' to the top of the scripts(like in the simplified packer buildfile) when googlecompute builder is used but same solution doesn't work for docker builder.

Helpful(?) notes

When I tried to replicate what docker provisioner does by running same command(docker exec -i ${container.id} powershell (${command})) from my local, it shows the same output and sets $LastExitCode to 1 on my local. So, I thought there could be some issues when checking errors after running commands on powershell.

Reproduction Steps

Run packer build.

Plugin and Packer version

packer: 1.8.4 plugin: 1.0.8

Simplified Packer Buildfile

packer {
  required_plugins {
    docker = {
      version = "1.0.8"
      source  = "github.com/hashicorp/docker"
    }
  }
}

source "docker" "windows" {
  image = "docker.io/mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:ltsc2022"
  windows_container = true
  discard = true
}

build {
  name = "windows_image"
  sources = ["source.docker.windows"]

  provisioner "powershell" {
    inline = [
        "$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'",
        "echo 'Will throw an error'",
        "throw 'cmdfail'",
    ]
  }
}

Operating system and Environment details

Windows 11 Laptop, Docker version 20.10.22, build 3a2c30b

Log Fragments and crash.log files

==> windows_image.docker.windows: Using dockerWindowsContainer communicator to connect:
2023/01/25 15:34:10 packer-plugin-docker_v1.0.8_x5.0_windows_amd64.exe plugin: 2023/01/25 15:34:10 Running the provision hook
2023/01/25 15:34:10 [INFO] (telemetry) Starting provisioner powershell
==> windows_image.docker.windows: Provisioning with Powershell...
2023/01/25 15:34:10 packer.exe plugin: Found command: $ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
2023/01/25 15:34:10 packer.exe plugin: Found command: echo 'Will throw an error'
2023/01/25 15:34:10 packer.exe plugin: Found command: throw 'cmdfail'
==> windows_image.docker.windows: Provisioning with powershell script: C:\Users\NAZIRY~1\AppData\Local\Temp\powershell-provisioner133813514
2023/01/25 15:34:10 packer.exe plugin: Opening C:\Users\NAZIRY~1\AppData\Local\Temp\powershell-provisioner133813514 for reading
2023/01/25 15:34:10 packer.exe plugin: Uploading env vars to c:/Windows/Temp/packer-ps-env-vars-63d121c2-c933-ee29-115f-58428ec45e10.ps1
2023/01/25 15:34:10 packer.exe plugin: [INFO] 69 bytes written for 'uploadData'
2023/01/25 15:34:10 [INFO] 69 bytes written for 'uploadData'
2023/01/25 15:34:10 packer-plugin-docker_v1.0.8_x5.0_windows_amd64.exe plugin: 2023/01/25 15:34:10 Executing docker exec -i 9cc26487e49e0bbcc84f47406a4dbca0ee2268a0477e7362bd12d7172bd7b462 powershell (Copy-Item -Path c:/packer-files/upload2656082275 -Destination c:/Windows/Temp/packer-ps-env-vars-63d121c2-c933-ee29-115f-58428ec45e10.ps1):
2023/01/25 15:34:12 packer.exe plugin: [INFO] 75 bytes written for 'uploadData'
2023/01/25 15:34:12 [INFO] 75 bytes written for 'uploadData'
2023/01/25 15:34:12 packer-plugin-docker_v1.0.8_x5.0_windows_amd64.exe plugin: 2023/01/25 15:34:12 Executing docker exec -i 9cc26487e49e0bbcc84f47406a4dbca0ee2268a0477e7362bd12d7172bd7b462 powershell (Copy-Item -Path c:/packer-files/upload4134780674 -Destination c:/Windows/Temp/script-63d121c2-9cd1-0134-9dcc-b34b157990b4.ps1):
2023/01/25 15:34:13 packer-plugin-docker_v1.0.8_x5.0_windows_amd64.exe plugin: 2023/01/25 15:34:13 Executing docker exec -i 9cc26487e49e0bbcc84f47406a4dbca0ee2268a0477e7362bd12d7172bd7b462 powershell (powershell -executionpolicy bypass "& { if (Test-Path variable:global:ProgressPreference){set-variable -name variable:global:ProgressPreference -value 'SilentlyContinue'};. c:/Windows/Temp/packer-ps-env-vars-63d121c2-c933-ee29-115f-58428ec45e10.ps1; &'c:/Windows/Temp/script-63d121c2-9cd1-0134-9dcc-b34b157990b4.ps1'; exit $LastExitCode }"):
==> windows_image.docker.windows: cmdfail
==> windows_image.docker.windows: At C:\Windows\Temp\script-63d121c2-9cd1-0134-9dcc-b34b157990b4.ps1:3 char:1
==> windows_image.docker.windows: + throw 'cmdfail'
==> windows_image.docker.windows: + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
==> windows_image.docker.windows:     + CategoryInfo          : OperationStopped: (cmdfail:String) [], RuntimeEx
==> windows_image.docker.windows:    ception
==> windows_image.docker.windows:     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : cmdfail
==> windows_image.docker.windows:
    windows_image.docker.windows: Will throw an error
2023/01/25 15:34:16 packer-plugin-docker_v1.0.8_x5.0_windows_amd64.exe plugin: 2023/01/25 15:34:16 [INFO] RPC endpoint: Communicator ended with: 0
2023/01/25 15:34:16 [INFO] 259 bytes written for 'stderr'
2023/01/25 15:34:16 [INFO] 21 bytes written for 'stdout'
2023/01/25 15:34:16 [INFO] RPC client: Communicator ended with: 0
2023/01/25 15:34:16 [INFO] RPC endpoint: Communicator ended with: 0
2023/01/25 15:34:16 packer.exe plugin: [INFO] 21 bytes written for 'stdout'
2023/01/25 15:34:16 packer.exe plugin: [INFO] 259 bytes written for 'stderr'
2023/01/25 15:34:16 packer.exe plugin: [INFO] RPC client: Communicator ended with: 0
2023/01/25 15:34:16 packer.exe plugin: c:/Windows/Temp/script-63d121c2-9cd1-0134-9dcc-b34b157990b4.ps1 returned with exit code 0
2023/01/25 15:34:16 packer.exe plugin: [INFO] 511 bytes written for 'uploadData'
2023/01/25 15:34:16 [INFO] 511 bytes written for 'uploadData'
2023/01/25 15:34:16 packer-plugin-docker_v1.0.8_x5.0_windows_amd64.exe plugin: 2023/01/25 15:34:16 Executing docker exec -i 9cc26487e49e0bbcc84f47406a4dbca0ee2268a0477e7362bd12d7172bd7b462 powershell (Copy-Item -Path c:/packer-files/upload1183844614 -Destination c:/Windows/Temp/packer-cleanup-63d121c2-4108-6f8d-01f7-cf6ac4f19e82.ps1):
2023/01/25 15:34:17 packer-plugin-docker_v1.0.8_x5.0_windows_amd64.exe plugin: 2023/01/25 15:34:17 Executing docker exec -i 9cc26487e49e0bbcc84f47406a4dbca0ee2268a0477e7362bd12d7172bd7b462 powershell (powershell -executionpolicy bypass "& { if (Test-Path variable:global:ProgressPreference){set-variable -name variable:global:ProgressPreference -value 'SilentlyContinue'};. c:/Windows/Temp/packer-ps-env-vars-63d121c2-c933-ee29-115f-58428ec45e10.ps1; &'c:/Windows/Temp/packer-cleanup-63d121c2-4108-6f8d-01f7-cf6ac4f19e82.ps1'; exit $LastExitCode }"):
2023/01/25 15:34:19 packer-plugin-docker_v1.0.8_x5.0_windows_amd64.exe plugin: 2023/01/25 15:34:19 [INFO] RPC endpoint: Communicator ended with: 0
2023/01/25 15:34:19 [INFO] 0 bytes written for 'stderr'
2023/01/25 15:34:19 [INFO] 0 bytes written for 'stdout'
2023/01/25 15:34:19 [INFO] RPC client: Communicator ended with: 0
2023/01/25 15:34:19 [INFO] RPC endpoint: Communicator ended with: 0
2023/01/25 15:34:19 packer.exe plugin: [INFO] 0 bytes written for 'stdout'
2023/01/25 15:34:19 packer.exe plugin: [INFO] 0 bytes written for 'stderr'
2023/01/25 15:34:19 packer.exe plugin: [INFO] RPC client: Communicator ended with: 0
2023/01/25 15:34:19 [INFO] (telemetry) ending powershell
==> windows_image.docker.windows: Killing the container: 9cc26487e49e0bbcc84f47406a4dbca0ee2268a0477e7362bd12d7172bd7b462
2023/01/25 15:34:19 [INFO] (telemetry) ending docker.windows
Build 'windows_image.docker.windows' finished after 15 seconds 471 milliseconds.
==> Wait completed after 15 seconds 471 milliseconds

==> Builds finished. The artifacts of successful builds are:
==> Wait completed after 15 seconds 471 milliseconds

hashicorp / packer-plugin-docker