cohero / packer-builder-vsphere

Packer plugin for remote builds on VMware vSphere

Packer Builder for VMware vSphere

This a plugin for HashiCorp Packer. It uses native vSphere API, and creates virtual machines remotely.

• Official vCenter API is used, no ESXi host modification is required

Requirements

• An automated OS installation method is required such as a custom ISO with either a kickstart file or autounattend.xml file. PXE installation is also another viable option for automated OS installation.

Usage

• Download the plugin from Releases page
• Install the plugin, or simply put it into the same directory with configuration files

Linux Example

{
  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "vsphere-iso",

      "vcenter_server": "vcenter.domain.com",
      "insecure_connection": "true",
      "username": "root",
      "password": "secret",
      "cluster": "cluster01",
      "host": "esxi-1.domain.com",

      "vm_name":  "vm-1",
      "convert_to_template": "true",
      "folder": "templates",
      "cpu": "1",
      "ram": "2048",
      "network": "VM Network",
      "network_adapter": "vmxnet3",
      "guest_os_type": "otherGuest",
      "datastore": "Local_Storage",
      "disk_size": "5GB",
      "iso": "ISOS/CentOS7.ISO",
      "iso_datastore": "Local_Storage",
      "communicator": "ssh",
      "ssh_username": "root",
      "ssh_password": "password",
      "annotation": "CentOS 7 with ChefDK"
    }
  ],
    "provisioners": [
        {
            "type": "shell",
            "inline":[
                "rpm -Uvh https://packages.chef.io/files/stable/chefdk/2.4.17/el/7/chefdk-2.4.17-1.el7.x86_64.rpm",
                "chef -v"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Windows Example

{
  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "vsphere-iso",

      "vcenter_server": "vcenter.domain.com",
      "insecure_connection": "true",
      "username": "root",
      "password": "secret",
      "cluster": "cluster01",
      "host": "esxi-1.domain.com",

      "vm_name":  "vm-1",
      "convert_to_template": "true",
      "folder": "templates",
      "cpu": "1",
      "ram": "2048",
      "network": "VM Network",
      "network_adapter": "e1000",
      "guest_os_type": "otherGuest",
      "datastore": "Local_Storage",
      "disk_size": "5GB",
      "iso": "ISOS/WIN2K12.ISO",
      "iso_datastore": "Local_Storage",
      "communicator": "winrm",
      "winrm_username": "administrator",
      "winrm_password": "password"
    }
  ]
}

Parameters

Connection:

• vcenter_server - [mandatory] vCenter server hostname.
• username - [mandatory] vSphere username.
• password - [mandatory] vSphere password.
• insecure_connection - do not validate server's TLS certificate. false by default.
• datacenter - required if there are several datacenters.

Location:

• vm_name - [mandatory] name of target VM.
• folder - VM folder where target VM is created.
• host - vSphere host or cluster where target VM is created. If hosts are groupped into folders, full path should be specified: folder/host.
• resource_pool - by default a root of vSphere host.
• datastore - required if target is a cluster, or a host with multiple datastores.

Hardware customization:

• hardware_version - Virtual machine hardware version (i.e. - vmx-11)
• guest_os_type - Guest Operating System identifier.
• cpu - number of CPU sockets. Inherited from source VM by default.
• CPU_reservation - Amount of reserved CPU resources in MHz. Inherited from source VM by default.
• CPU_limit - Upper limit of available CPU resources in MHz. Inherited from source VM by default, set to -1 for reset.
• ram - Amount of RAM in megabytes. Inherited from source VM by default.
• RAM_reservation - Amount of reserved RAM in MB. Inherited from source VM by default.
• RAM_reserve_all - Reserve all available RAM (bool). false by default. Cannot be used together with RAM_reservation.
• disk_size - The size of the hard disk.
• iso_datastore - The datastore the ISO file is stored on.
• iso - The path of the ISO file, full path should be specified: folder/file
• network - The virtual network the VM is attached to.
• network_adapter - The network adapter type for the VM.

Provisioning:

• communicator - The connection protocol for connecting to the guest os [ssh|winrm]
• ssh_username - Guest OS username
• ssh_password or ssh_private_key_file - password or SSH-key filename to access a guest OS.
• winrm_username - Guest OS username
• winrm_password - Guest OS password

Post-processing:

• create_snapshot - add a snapshot, so VM can be used as a base for linked clones. false by default.
• convert_to_template - convert VM to a template. false by default.