Missing vmx file? Packer or Vagrant issue?

Packer
1

I’m not sure if it’s a Packer problem or belongs more to Vagrant but I have a problem with a newly created box.

As an exercise with packer/vagrant I’m trying to make a RockyLinux box, and use packer with the vmware-esxi plugin for that. The box creation all seems to work fine, and my box created is also being pushed to vagrant cloud.

However, when I create a Vagrantfile with a call to this vagrant cloud box I get the message that no .vmx file is present.

gerrit@gerrit-NUC7i5DNHE:~/Repo/ansible-for-devops$ sudo vagrant up

Bringing machine 'default' up with 'vmware_esxi' provider...
==> default: Virtual Machine will be built.
VMware ovftool 4.4.3 (build-18663434)
There was an error.
  Unable to open /root/.vagrant.d/boxes/gzeel-VAGRANTSLASH-rocky8/1.0.3/vmware_desktop/*.vmx

Where am I doing something wrong?

packer file :

{
  "variables": {
      "boot_wait": "5s",
      "disk_size": "40960",
      "iso_checksum": "5a0dc65d1308e47b51a49e23f1030b5ee0f0ece3702483a8a6554382e893333c",
      "iso_url": "https://nlrtm1-edge1.cdn.i3d.net/o1/k9999/pub/rockylinux/8.5/isos/x86_64/Rocky-8.5-x86_64-boot.iso",
      "ssh_password" : "packer",
      "ssh_username" : "packer",
      "vm_name": "packer-Rocky-8.5-x86_64"
    },
    "builders": [
      {
        "type": "vmware-iso",
        "boot_command": [
          "<tab><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>inst.text inst.ks=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/ks.cfg<enter><wait>"
        ],
        "boot_wait": "{{ user `boot_wait` }}",
        "disk_size": "{{ user `disk_size` }}",
        "disk_type_id": "thin",
        "cpus": "1",
        "memory": "2048",
        "guest_os_type": "centos-64",
        "headless": false,
        "vnc_over_websocket": true,
        "http_directory": "http",
        "iso_checksum": "{{ user `iso_checksum` }}",
        "iso_url": "{{ user `iso_url` }}",
        "shutdown_command": "echo 'packer'|sudo -S /sbin/halt -h -p",
        "ssh_password": "{{ user `ssh_password` }}",
        "ssh_port": 22,
        "ssh_username": "{{ user `ssh_username` }}",
        "ssh_timeout": "30m",
        "vm_name": "{{ user `vm_name` }}",
        "insecure_connection": true,
        "remote_type": "esx5",
        "remote_host": "192.168.2.6",
        "remote_datastore": "datastore1",
        "remote_username": "root",
        "remote_password": "{{user `esxi_password`}}",
        "vmx_data": {
           "ethernet0.networkName": "VM Network" 
        }
      }
    ],
  "provisioners": [
    {
      "type": "shell",
      "execute_command": "echo 'packer'|{{.Vars}} sudo -S -E bash '{{.Path}}'",
      "inline": [
        "dnf -y update",
        "dnf -y install python3",
        "alternatives --set python /usr/bin/python3",
        "python3 -m pip install -U pip",
        "python3 -m pip install ansible"
      ]
    },
    {
      "type": "ansible-local",
      "playbook_file": "scripts/setup.yml"
    },
    {
      "type": "shell",
      "execute_command": "echo 'packer'|{{.Vars}} sudo -S -E bash '{{.Path}}'",
      "scripts": [
        "scripts/cleanup.sh"
      ]
    }
  ],

  "post-processors": [
    [
      {
        "output": "builds/{{.Provider}}-rocky8.box",
        "type": "vagrant"
      },
      {
        "type": "vagrant-cloud",
        "box_tag": "gzeel/rocky8",
        "version": "{{user `version`}}"
      }
    ]
  ]
}

vagrant file for building the box :

# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# vi: set ft=ruby :

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.ssh.insert_key = false

  config.vm.provider :vmware_esxi do |esxi|
    esxi.esxi_hostname = "192.168.2.6"
    esxi.esxi_username = "root"
    esxi.esxi_password = "verystrongpassword"
    esxi.esxi_virtual_network = "VM Network"
    esxi.esxi_disk_store = "datastore1"
    esxi.guest_memsize = "2048"
    esxi.guest_numvcpus = "1"
  end 

end