Example Packer configuration files for building Ubuntu 18.04 Server Image for VMware ESXi 6.7 platform (includes testing)

All examples were run on a MacOS laptop

System Software Overview:

  System Version:	macOS 10.14.5 (18F132)
  Kernel Version:	Darwin 18.6.0

Packer version 1.3.5 was used as the brew install of Packer at the time of writing defaulted to version 1.4.1 and this caused false ISO download issues when working with VMware/vCenter 6.7.

This is the error I keep getting when using Packer 1.4.0 - 1.4.2 :

==> vsphere-iso: Retrieving ISO
    vsphere-iso: Error downloading: open : no such file or directory
==> vsphere-iso: ISO download failed.
Build 'vsphere-iso' errored: ISO download failed.

==> Some builds didn't complete successfully and had errors:
--> vsphere-iso: ISO download failed.

==> Builds finished but no artifacts were created.

Prerequisite to running the build process:

• Clone this repository

git clone git@github.com:allthingsclowd/packer-vsphere-iso-example.git 

• Configure the .variables file [Note: Ensure to add this file to your .gitignore or keep it outside your repository to avoid accidentally uploading passwords to your repository]

{
    "vcenter_server":"YOUR VCENTRE IP ADDRESS",
    "username":"administrator@vsphere.local",
    "password":"VCENTRE PASSWORD",
    "datastore":"datastore1",
    "folder": "/vm/_Templates",
    "host":"ESXi IP ADDRESS",
    "cluster": "",
    "network": "VM Network",
    "resource_pool": "",
    "ssh_username": "grazzer",
    "ssh_password": "grazzer"
}

• Copy your public ssh key that you'll use to access the VM remotely to the packer directory and call it id_rsa.pub

• Change into the packer directory

cd packer

• Download packer version 1.3.5

wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/packer/1.3.5/packer_1.3.5_darwin_amd64.zip
unzip packer_1.3.5_darwin_amd64.zip
chmod +x packer

• Download the vsphere-iso builder plugin and rename as follows

wget https://github.com/jetbrains-infra/packer-builder-vsphere/releases/download/v2.3/packer-builder-vsphere-iso.macos
mv packer-builder-vsphere-iso.macos packer-builder-vsphere-iso
chmod +x packer-builder-vsphere-iso

Example command used to build a server image template

./packer build -force -var-file=.variables server.json

WEbhook test