Type: vsphere-template Artifact BuilderId: packer.post-processor.vsphere

This post-processor uses an artifact from the vmware-iso builder with an ESXi host or an artifact from the vSphere post-processor. It then marks the virtual machine as a template and moves it to your specified path.

Configuration

The following configuration options are available for the post-processor.

Required:

• host (string) - Specifies the fully qualified domain name or IP address of the vSphere endpoint.

• username (string) - Specifies the username to use to authenticate to the vSphere endpoint.

• password (string) - Specifies the password to use to authenticate to the vSphere endpoint.

Optional:

• insecure (bool) - Specifies whether to skip the verification of the server certificate. Defaults to false.

• datacenter (string) - Specifies the name of the datacenter to use. Required when the vCenter Server instance endpoint has more than one datacenter.

• template_name (string) - Specifies the name of the template. If not specified, the name of the virtual machine will be used.

• folder (string) - Specifies the name of the virtual machine folder path where the template will be created.

• snapshot_enable (bool) - Specifies whether to create a snapshot before marking as a template. Defaults to false.

• snapshot_name (string) - Specifies the name of the snapshot. Required when snapshot_enable is true.

• snapshot_description (string) - Specifies a description for the snapshot. Required when snapshot_enable is true.

• reregister_vm (boolean) - Specifies to keep the virtual machine registered after marking as a template.

• keep_input_artifact (boolean) - This option is not applicable to vsphere-template. For a template to function, the original virtual machine from which it was generated cannot be deleted. Therefore, the vSphere Template post-processor always preserves the original virtual machine.

  Note: If you are getting permission denied errors when trying to mark as a template, but it works in the vSphere UI, set this to false. Default is true.

Example Usage

An example is shown below, showing only the post-processor configuration:

In HCL2:

source "null" "example" {
    communicator = "none"
}

build {
    sources = [
        "source.null.example"
    ]

    post-processors {
      post-processor "vsphere-template"{
          host                = "vcenter.example.com"
          insecure            = false
          username            = "administrator@vsphere.local"
          password            = "VMw@re1!"
          datacenter          = "dc-01"
          folder              = "/templates/os/distro"
      }
    }
}

In JSON:

{
  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "null",
      "communicator": "none"
    }
  ],
  "post-processors": [
    [
      {
        "type": "vsphere-template",
        "host": "vcenter.example.com",
        "insecure": true,
        "username": "administrator@vsphere.local",
        "password": "VMw@re1!",
        "datacenter": "dc-01",
        "folder": "/templates/os/distro"
      }
    ]
  ]
}

Using the vSphere Template with Local Builders

Once the vSphere post-processor takes an artifact from the builder and uploads it to a vSphere endpoint, you may want the virtual machine to be marked as a template.

In HCL2:

build {
    sources = [
        "source.null.example"
    ]

  post-processors {
    post-processor "vsphere" {
      # ...
    }

    post-processor "vsphere-template" {
      # ...
    }
  }
}

In JSON:

{
  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "null",
      "communicator": "none"
    }
  ],
  "post-processors": [
    [
      {
        "type": "vsphere",
         ...
      },
      {
        "type": "vsphere-template",
         ...
      }
    ],
    {
      "type": "...",
      ...
    }
  ]
}

In the example above, the result of each builder is passed through the defined sequence of post-processors starting with the vsphere post-processor which will upload the artifact to a vSphere endpoint. The resulting artifact is then passed on to the vsphere-template post-processor which handles marking a VM as a template. In JSON, note that the vsphere and vsphere-template post-processors can be paired together in their own array.

Permissions

The post processor needs several privileges to be able to mark the virtual as a template.

Rather than giving full administrator access, you can create a role to give the post-processor the privileges necessary to run.

Below is an example role that will work. Please note that this is a user-supplied list so there may be a few extraneous privileges that are not strictly required.

For vSphere, the role needs the following privileges:

• Datastore.AllocateSpace

• Host.Config.AdvancedConfig

• Host.Config.NetService

• Host.Config.Network

• Network.Assign

• System.Anonymous

• System.Read

• System.View

• VApp.Import

• VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk

• VirtualMachine.Config.AdvancedConfig

• VirtualMachine.Inventory.Delete

  and either (if reregister_vm is false):

  • VirtualMachine.Provisioning.MarkAsTemplate

  or (if reregister_vm is true or unset):

  • VirtualMachine.Inventory.Register
  • VirtualMachine.Inventory.Unregister

The role must be authorized on the:

• Cluster of the host.
• The destination folder.
• The destination datastore.
• The network to be assigned.

Troubleshooting

Some users have reported that vSphere templates created from local vSphere builds get their boot order reset to CD-ROM only instead of the original boot order defined by the template. If this issue affects you, the solution is to set "bios.hddOrder": "scsi0:0" in your builder's vmx_data.