So no option to keep it on during the build ?
The current solution for me is to use ssh communicator along with -on-error=abort
This results in having the DB VM staying on during and after the build, but then I need to manually turn it into a template - so its not optimal.
Another possible solution is to use the shell provisioner to send the DB VM a sleep command , but I was hoping there is some builtin functionality here that is more packer build “aware”.
BTW using shutdown_timeout does not seem to have any effect (tested with the none communicator).