Packer templates

I set off to build CentOS 7.6 & Windows 2019 packer templates on vSphere 6.7 w/ vSAN. This ededed up being non trivial so I created this repo to capture my findings.

Requirements

Any one of the following are required to build templates depending on your needs.

VMware Desktop

• VMware Workstation/Fusion
• OVF Tool
  • After installation, create a symlink (MacOS)
    • ln -s /Applications/VMware\ OVF\ Tool/ovftool /usr/local/bin/ovftool
• Packer

VMware vSphere

• vSphere 6.7 (tested on U2)
• ESXi host with ssh enabled
• ESXi firewall allowing VNC traffic
• vSwitch for VM template
• OVF Tool
  • After installation, create a symlink (MacOS)
    • ln -s /Applications/VMware\ OVF\ Tool/ovftool /usr/local/bin/ovftool
• Packer

Virtualbox

• Virtualbox
• OVF Tool
  • After installation, create a symlink (MacOS)
    • ln -s /Applications/VMware\ OVF\ Tool/ovftool /usr/local/bin/ovftool
• Packer

Variables and secrets

• Copy .env_example to .env
• Modify vars/vsphere.json & .env to suit your needs

Setup ESXi Host

Enable SSH:

Inside the web UI, navigate to “Manage”, then the “Services” tab. Find the entry called: “TSM-SSH”, and enable it.

You may wish to enable it to start up with the host by default. You can do this inside the “Actions” dropdown (it’s nested inside “Policy”).

Enable GuestIPHack on ESXi Host:

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

This allows Packer to infer the guest IP from ESXi, without the VM needing to report it itself.

Open VNC Ports on the Firewall:

Packer connects to the VM using VNC, so we’ll open a range of ports to allow it to connect to it.

Install VIB for persistent firewall setting: https://github.com/umich-vci/packer-vib

For a one time setting, follow these steps.

First, ensure we can edit the firewall configuration:

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

Then append the range we want to open to the end of the file:

<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>

Finally, restore the permissions and reload the firewall:

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

Reference:

• https://nickcharlton.net/posts/using-packer-esxi-6.html

Packer builds

VMware Workstation

CentOS 7.6

source .env
packer build -var-file=vars/vmware/centos_7.6.json vmware_desktop_centos.json

CentOS 8.0

source .env
packer build -var-file=vars/vmware/centos_8.0.json vmware_desktop_centos.json

Windows 2019

source .env
packer build vmware_desktop_windows_2019.json

VMware vSphere

Setup the VMware vSphere connection variables by creating a vsphere.json file under vars/vmware

Example:

{
    "esxi_remote_host": "192.168.1.126",
    "esxi_remote_username": "root",
    "vcenter_host": "192.168.1.136",
    "vcenter_username": "administrator@vsphere.local",
    "vcenter_insecure": "true",
    "vcenter_datacenter": "Home",
    "vcenter_datastore": "datastore1"
}

CentOS 7.6

source .env
packer build -var-file=vars/vmware/vsphere.json -var-file=vars/vmware/centos_7.6.json vmware_vsphere_centos.json

.env.ps1
packer build -var-file="vars\vmware\vsphere.json" -var-file="vars\vmware\centos_7.6.json"

CentOS 8.0

source .env
packer build -var-file=vars/vmware/vsphere.json -var-file=vars/vmware/centos_8.0.json vmware_vsphere_centos.json

.env.ps1
packer build -var-file="vars\vmware\vsphere.json" -var-file="vars\vmware\centos_8.0.json"

Windows 2019

source .env
packer build -var-file=vars/vmware/vsphere.json vmware_vsphere_windows_2019.json

.env.ps1
packer build -var-file="vars\vmware\vsphere.json" vmware_vsphere_windows_2019.json

Optional

If you want to apply Windows updates as part of the template creation process, you'll need to install an additional provisioner.

Packer Windows Update Provisioner

You can install it in one of two ways.

Chocolatey: choco install packer-provisioner-windows-update

Manually: Download Link

Once installed, use the vmware_vsphere_windows_2019_windows_update.json builder file instead.

Virtualbox

CentOS 7.6

source .env
packer build -var-file=vars/virtualbox/centos_7.6.json virtualbox_centos.json

CentOS 8.0

source .env
packer build -var-file=vars/virtualbox/centos_8.0.json virtualbox_centos.json

To Do:

Centos 8 doesn't seem to have the sys-unconfig script anymore so we just shutdown the VM using shutdown -h now. We'll need to update this to ensure we're prepping the image properly. Currently, I don't see any alternate methods to achieve the same thing.