packer-builder-vsphere

Installation instructions

0. It is supposed that you already have Go(and Packer), Docker-compose and Glide set.

1. Download the sourcces from github.com/LizaTretyakova/packer-builder-vsphere

2. cd to $GOPATH/go/src/github.com/LizaTretyakova/packer-builder-vsphere (or wherever it was downloaded)

3. Get the dependencies

$ glide install

4. Build the binaries

$ sudo docker-compose up

5. The template for this builder is like following:

{
    "variables": {
            "url": "{{env `YOUR_VSPHERE_URL`}}",
            "username": "{{env `YOUR_VSPHERE_USERNAME`}}",
            "password": "{{env `YOUR_VSPHERE_PASSWORD`}}",
            "ssh_username": "{{env `TEMPLATE_VM_SSH_USERNAME`}}",
            "ssh_password": "{{env `TEMPLATE_VM_SSH_PASSWORD`}}",
            "dc_name": "{{env `TEMPLATE_VM_DATACENTER`}}",
            "template": "{{env `TEMPLATE_VM_NAME`}}"
    },
    "builders": [
        {
            "type": "vsphere",
            "url": "{{user `url`}}",
            "username": "{{user `username`}}",
            "password": "{{user `password`}}",
            "ssh_username": "{{user `ssh_username`}}",
            "ssh_password": "{{user `ssh_password`}}",
            "dc_name": "{{user `dc_name`}}",
            "template": "{{user `template`}}",
            "vm_name": "new_vm_name",
            "RAM": "1024",
            "cpus": "2",
            "shutdown_command": "echo '{{user `ssh_password`}}' | sudo -S shutdown -P now"
        } 
    ],
    "provisioners": [
        {
              "type": "shell",
              "inline": ["echo foo"]
        }
    ]
}

where vm_name, RAM, cpus and shutdown_command are parameters of the new VM. Parameters ssh_*, dc_name (datacenter name) and template (the name of the base VM) are for the base VM, on which you are creating the new one (note, that VMWare Tools should be already installed on this template machine). url, username and password are your vSphere parameters. You need to set the appropriate values in the variables section before proceeding.

6. Now you can go to the bin/ directory

$ cd ./bin

and try the builder

$ packer build template.json