packer-vsphere-vm-tools

Packer post-processor to register vmware tools, allowing for guest customization of the output from the vsphere and vsphere-template post-processors during deployment. Otherwise customspec fails because VMware thinks guest tools are not installed.

Getting Started

These instructions will provide steps to build and use this post-processor in your vsphere packer builds.

Prerequisites

• Go - 1.12.4 tested
• Packer - 1.4.0 tested
• VMware Player/Workstation - 14.1.7 tested
• VMware VIX SDK - 1.15.0 tested
• VMware vCenter and accompanying infra - ESXi 6.0-6.5 tested

Building and installation

Clone the project

git clone https://github.com/cacoyle/packer-vsphere-vm-tools.git; cd packer-vsphere-vm-tools

Install dependencies

go get -d ./...

Build the post-processor

go build .

Install the post-processor

cp packer-vsphere-vm-tools ~/.packer.d/plugins/packer-post-processor-vsphere-vm-tools

Using in packer build

{
  "variables": {
    "vcenter_url": "vcenter.local",
    "vcenter_username": "Administrator",
    "vcenter_password": "XXXXXXX"
  },
  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "vmware-iso",
      ....
    }
  ],
  "post-processors": [
    [
      {
        "type": "vsphere",
        ....
      },
      {
        "type": "vsphere-vm-tools",
        "host": "{{ user `vcenter_url` }}",
        "insecure": true,
        "username": "{{ user `vcenter_username` }}",
        "password": "{{ user `vcenter_password` }}",
        "keep_input_artifact": true
      },
      {
        "type": "vsphere-template",
        ....
      }
    ]
  ]
}

Todo

• Make retry interval and max attempts part of configuration
• Fork/PR this feature to the packer/vsphere-template for review