Vagrant Windows box factory

Windows Server, as it should be out of the box.

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Introduction

This project contains a set of Packer templates and variable files which produce Windows base boxes for Vagrant.

How it works

Packer downloads the required ISO files to the cache, creates a floppy image containing some key bootstrap files, creates the VM using the virtualbox-iso builder, then launches the VirtualBox VM with the installation media and generated floppy attached.

During its boot process, Windows setup reads the contents of the floppy disk locates the answer file (Autounattend.xml) and uses its contents to perform an unattended installation. This answer file configures automatic logon as the vagrant user.

During the OOBE (Out Of Box Experience) process, the machine executes a series of bootstrap scripts which install Boxstarter. Boxstarter is then used to install a package across a series of reboots, which:

• Reboots the machine to finalise the installation and exit the OOBE.
• Prevents the screen from being turned off when the machine is idle.
• Lowers the PowerShell policy to RemoteSigned.
• Prevents automated installation of Windows updates.
• Enables WinRM for remote maintenance.
• Generalises the image with Sysprep during shutdown.

Once WinRM is available, Packer shuts the machine down and packages the machine image ready for distribution.

The OOBE will be skipped on subsequent boots, but automatic logon will be disabled.

Setting up your environment

Installation of a Packer build environment is simple:

1. Install VirtualBox.
2. Install Packer.
3. Ensure both of the above tools are on your PATH.
4. Install dependencies with packer init windows.pkr.hcl.

Building a box

Two files instruct Packer on how to build our images:

• The template describes the target box and the source files and commands that build it.
• Variables files contain all of the parameter values.

These images are comprised of a single template (windows.pkr.hcl) and a variables file which contains all of the values for the parameters that change across editions.

On Linux

./packer.sh build \
    -only virtualbox-iso.windows_server \
    -var-file templates/2019_x64_standard/vars.pkrvars.hcl \
    windows.pkr.hcl

On macOS

With Parallels:

brew install --cask parallels-virtualization-sdk
./packer.sh build \
    -only parallels-iso.windows_server \
    -var-file templates/2019_x64_standard/vars.pkrvars.hcl \
    windows.pkr.hcl

With VirtualBox:

./packer.sh build \
    -only virtualbox-iso.windows_server \
    -var-file templates/2019_x64_standard/vars.pkrvars.hcl \
    windows.pkr.hcl

On Windows

.\packer.ps1 build `
    -only virtualbox-iso.windows_server \
    -var-file .\templates\2019_x64_standard\vars.pkrvars.hcl `
    .\windows.pkr.hcl

Activating Windows

By default, these images are built from Evaluation editions of Windows. To change the edition of a VM on the fly, run the following from an elevated Command Prompt:

DISM /Online /Set-Edition:ServerStandard /AcceptEula /ProductKey:GET-YOUR-OWN

Modifying answer files

Answer files are easiest to edit in the Windows System Image Manager. See TechNet for detailed installation instructions.

Be sure to check that WSIM hasn't made a mess of the XML file -- just open your preferred editor and check the line endings and indentation and remove any installation source information before checking in changes. It particularly enjoys obscuring cleartext passwords, which is unhelpful in an open source environment.

A note on ISOs

By default, this project uses the free trial Windows Server trial ISOs provided by Microsoft. If you wish to use an activated copy, you can do so by editing the iso_url and iso_checksum fields in the template.json files and altering Autounattend.xml accordingly.

The default ISOs are as follows:

Windows version	ISO URL	Cache filename
2008 R2 x64	http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/5/E/75EC4E54-5B02-42D6-8879-D8D3A25FBEF7/7601.17514.101119-1850_x64fre_server_eval_en-us-GRMSXEVAL_EN_DVD.iso	75e529d96d6b175622512cf0a1bc55a5d1677e6a9d3b913fe95c65b6aa41770d.iso
2012 R2 x64	http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/2/A/62A76ABB-9990-4EFC-A4FE-C7D698DAEB96/9600.16384.WINBLUE_RTM.130821-1623_X64FRE_SERVER_EVAL_EN-US-IRM_SSS_X64FREE_EN-US_DV5.ISO	0fa2380dae2e2178d3dcbd7475d35a9133fd0d61cad4fa1f87a2a83f358a3c8b.iso
2016 x64	http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/1/6/F/16FA20E6-4662-482A-920B-1A45CF5AAE3C/14393.0.160715-1616.RS1_RELEASE_SERVER_EVAL_X64FRE_EN-US.ISO	524abd34eb2abcc5e5a12da5b1c97fa3a6a626a831c29b4e74801f4131fb08ed.iso
2019 x63	https://software-download.microsoft.com/download/sg/17763.379.190312-0539.rs5_release_svc_refresh_SERVER_EVAL_x64FRE_en-us.iso	``