jasonodonnell / packer-centos-esxi

Packer build for CentOS VM on ESXI

Packer CentOS for ESXI

Packer build for CentOS VMs on ESXI.

Configure ESXI

First, configure the ESXI host to allow Packer to find IP addresses of VMs:

esxcli system settings advanced set -o /Net/GuestIPHack -i 1

Next, open VNC ports on the ESXI host firewall:

chmod 644 /etc/vmware/firewall/service.xml
chmod +t /etc/vmware/firewall/service.xml
vi /etc/vmware/firewall/service.xml

Add this to bottom of the file (above ):

<service id="1000">
  <id>packer-vnc</id>
  <rule id="0000">
    <direction>inbound</direction>
    <protocol>tcp</protocol>
    <porttype>dst</porttype>
    <port>
      <begin>5900</begin>
      <end>6000</end>
    </port>
  </rule>
  <enabled>true</enabled>
  <required>true</required>
</service>

Reload the firewall:

chmod 444 /etc/vmware/firewall/service.xml
esxcli network firewall refresh

Pre-Build

For the ISO, either add it to the ./iso directory or let Packer pull it remotely.

Set the following environment variables to provide access to the remote ESXI host:

export ESXI_HOST='<IP ADDRESS>'
export ESXI_DATASTORE='<DATASTORE NAME>'
export ESXI_USERNAME='<SSH USERNAME>'
export ESXI_PASSWORD='<SSH PASSWORD>'

Build

packer build centos-7-base.json