The vsphere-iso builder is a 3pp plugin 1) that I don't know much about except that it has a good reputation and there is some slow work to get it into the official repository, see PR #7168 2). But I wouldn't hold my breath for that, it might take some time before it is in.
I have some experience with the vmware-iso builder on ESXi. It has some incompatibilities with vSphere, vMotion and distributed switches if I remember correctly. If you have problem with that I recommend that you run a standalone ESXi just for building with Packer, the same thing is if you are concerned about the security implications of GuestIPHack and allowing SSH to the ESXi's. This you can either run on HW or under nested virtualisation in a vSphere VM. 1) https://github.com/jetbrains-infra/packer-builder-vsphere 2) https://github.com/hashicorp/packer/pull/7168 On Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 3:09 PM Kevin Gregory <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Folks, > > I am the administrator of our virtual environment running VMware ESXI 6. > One of our departments is looking to leverage packer to build our RHEL > templates, and they are looking to use vsphere builder. We have tried to > use domain accts to no avail and I set up local accounts to no avail. We > are getting a connection to the ESXI HOST as I am seeing a connection being > made within the HOSTD.log file. > > user=vpxuser:VSPHERE.LOCAL\PackerTest] Task Created : > haTask--vim.SessionManager.acquireGenericServiceTicket-2135324 > 2019-01-14T17:58:54.849Z info hostd[76950B70] [Originator@6876 > sub=Vimsvc.TaskManager > opID=6580cec5-bd62-4c92-ac2a-63437f3fa18f-179845-ngc-14-5d-86b4 > user=vpxuser:VSPHERE.LOCAL\PackerTest] Task Completed : > > Beyond this nothing is created. > Below is the generic .JSON file that our application folks are utilizing. > > "type": "vsphere-iso", > > "vcenter_server": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx", > > "insecure_connection": "true", > > "username": *[email protected] <[email protected]>*, > > "password": "", > > "cluster": "cluster", > > "host": "ESXHOST1", > > "datacenter": "USE1", > > "vm_name": "RHEL7PackerTest", > > "convert_to_template": "false", > > "folder": "Templates", > > "cpu": "1", > > "ram": "2048", > > "network": "admin", > > "network_adapter": "VMXNET3", > > "guest_os_type": "rhel7_64Guest", > > "datastore": "TEMPLATES", > > "disk_size": "20-GB", > > "iso_datastore":"TEMPLATES", > > "iso":"rhel-server-7.6-x86_64-dvd.iso" > > > Our Applications team wants us to enable SSH on the ESXI Hosts, but I see > it is not recommended, Also we are being asked to run the following > command. > > > > esxcli system settings advanced set -o /Net/GuestIPHack -i 1 > > This allows Packer to infer the guest IP from ESXi, without the VM needing > to report it itself. > > Since both groups are new to this process of using packer, I wanted to > check here for the best practice. > > > Thank you in advance. > > > KG > > > > -- > This mailing list is governed under the HashiCorp Community Guidelines - > https://www.hashicorp.com/community-guidelines.html. Behavior in > violation of those guidelines may result in your removal from this mailing > list. > > GitHub Issues: https://github.com/mitchellh/packer/issues > IRC: #packer-tool on Freenode > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Packer" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/packer-tool/1f07b6c1-2c84-47f4-b18a-94b5f92a1d91%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/packer-tool/1f07b6c1-2c84-47f4-b18a-94b5f92a1d91%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- This mailing list is governed under the HashiCorp Community Guidelines - https://www.hashicorp.com/community-guidelines.html. Behavior in violation of those guidelines may result in your removal from this mailing list. GitHub Issues: https://github.com/mitchellh/packer/issues IRC: #packer-tool on Freenode --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Packer" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/packer-tool/CALz9Rt9mD%3Dc1YHz9QKAAVMGFACQWea%3DRdZC9Oa7CJurDsOtGpg%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
