Deploy Ubuntu using Packer on VMWare ESXi

Requirements

• An ESXi host attached to vCenter. I am using ESXi v6.7
• Clone https://github.com/amard33p/packer101/

Builder - vsphere-iso or vmware-iso?

Packer supports 2 builders to create VM from an ISO image on VMWare.

• vsphere-iso: ESXi host must be attached to a vCenter. Uses vSphere API.
• vmware-iso: ESXi host need not be attached to vCenter. However few configurations are needed in ESXi:
  • Enable GuestIPHack
  • Enable VNC

This example uses vsphere-iso.
Note: The latest packer versions support vsphere-iso natively. So the jetbrains plugin is no longer required.

Usage

1. Setup Packer

     cd /tmp
     wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/packer/1.5.5/packer_1.5.5_linux_amd64.zip
     unzip packer_1.5.5_linux_amd64.zip
     cp packer /usr/local/bin/
     chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/packer
   

2. Edit ubuntu-18/variables.json
3. Run packer build -var-file variables.json ubuntu-18.json
4. In case Ubuntu decides to drop floppy driver support, we can use packer’s inbuilt http-server feature to expose the preseed file.

References:

• https://www.thehumblelab.com/automating-ubuntu-18-packer/