Packer no shutdown

Packer
1

I would like to use Packer for its ability to edit the boot command. Its brilliant. The setup I am performing however is just booting from iso and the rest is handled automatically. There is no shutdown and no other provisioning required.

I searched but I seem to find outdated info.

Is it possible to have Packer create a VM using vsphere-iso so I can use the boot command, then end the packer build without doing anything else?

Right now Packer waits for IP which it never gets.

Thanks.

2

Packer waits for an IP address because it anticipates provisioning. Setting a short timeout addresses this…

set a very short timeout for the IP address acquisition so it never waits long to acquire IP.

communicator = "none"
boot_wait = "5s"

builders {
  type = "iso"

  boot_command = "some boot commands"
  boot_wait = "5s"
  communicator = "none"
  shutdown_command = "none"

}
1 Like
3

Thanks for the quick reply :smiley:

Apologies for what is perhaps obvious stuff …

This is what I currently have:

packer {
  required_plugins {
    vsphere = {
      source  = "github.com/hashicorp/vsphere"
      version = "~> 1"
    }
  }
}

source "vsphere-iso" "test" {
  CPU_hot_plug         = true
  CPUs                 = 2
  RAM                  = 2048
  RAM_hot_plug         = true
  boot_command         = ["e<down><down><down><down><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><right><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>vmware test.config=guestinfo net.ifnames=0 reboot=k text<f10>"]
  boot_wait            = "3s"
  cluster              = "pbc"
  convert_to_template  = false
  create_snapshot      = false
  datacenter           = "attic"
  datastore            = "nfs_ds"
  disk_controller_type = ["pvscsi"]
  folder               = "k8s"
  guest_os_type        = "other6xLinux64Guest"
  host                 = "esxi.domain.net"
  insecure_connection  = "true"
  iso_paths            = ["[nfs_ds] isos/233d9a0cbb35c256151626f357a64cc37d55552da09935bd82449f7660c64b45/metal-amd64.iso"]
  notes                = "Packer test version 0.0.8"
  communicator         = "none"
  shutdown_command     = "none"
  ssh_username         = "root"
  configuration_parameters = {
    "disk.EnableUUID" = "TRUE"
    "guestinfo.test.config" = "dmVyc2lvbjogdj......5lbnRzLnlhbWwK"
  }
  network_adapters {
    network = "lan"
    network_card = "vmxnet3"
  }
  storage {
    disk_size             = 100000
    disk_thin_provisioned = true
  }
  network_adapters {
    network = "storage"
    network_card = "vmxnet3"
  }
  storage {
    disk_size             = 500000
    disk_thin_provisioned = true
  }
  username       = "Administrator@vsphere.local"
  password         = "haha"
  vcenter_server = "vcenter.domain.net"
  vm_name        = "test"
}

build {
  sources = [ "vsphere-iso.test" ]
}

I get the key value pairs, but I don’t understand how I am to adapt to the builders type iso? How does that work exactly?

ps. I need 3s boot_wait because the boot grub timeout is really short and vmware boots really fast :smiley:

ps2.

  communicator         = "none"
  shutdown_command     = "none"

results in:

Warning: The parameter `shutdown_command` is ignored as it requires a `communicator`.

Thanks again! Really appreciate the help!