Hi,
I’m trying to build i a minimal installation of several Debian and Ubuntu Versions on vmware vsphere using the packer provider “vsphere-iso”. I want to use an upstream installation ISO and provide a preseed file. To do so I found several howtos to provide the preseed file as a floppy disk and also using the built-in http server (e.g. Unattended Debian/Ubuntu Installation | Packer by HashiCorp).
However both variants are not suitable for me:
- floppy disk variant will fail on newer distributions since floppy drivers were removed from newer linux kernels
- http server would theoretically work but in practice I want to create a CI/CD pipeline (gitlab-ci), were the build runs inside a docker container
I have successfully built such pipelines for Centos derivates (e.g. Centos 7), were I use govc to build an ISO from kickstart file for Anaconda and upload it to my datastore before doing the packer build. The build VM results in having 2 cdrom drives, one for Installation disk an one for the kickstart ISO.
My packer.json for Centos7 looks like this:
{
"variables": {
"vcenter_server": "{{env `GOVC_URL`}}",
"vcenter_insecure": "{{env `GOVC_INSECURE`}}",
"vcenter_user": "{{env `GOVC_USERNAME`}}",
"vcenter_password": "{{env `GOVC_PASSWORD`}}",
"vm_datacenter": "{{env `GOVC_DATACENTER`}}",
"vm_datastore": "{{env `GOVC_DATASTORE`}}",
"vm_cluster": "{{env `VM_CLUSTER`}}",
"vm_resourcepool": "{{env `VM_RESOURCEPOOL`}}",
"vm_folder": "{{env `VM_FOLDER`}}",
"vm_name": "{{env `VM_NAME`}}",
"install_net": "{{env `INSTALL_NET`}}",
"iso_kickstart": "{{env `ISO_KICKSTART`}}",
"iso_datastore": "{{env `ISO_DATASTORE`}}",
"install_dir": "install",
"install_iso": "CentOS/CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-1908.iso"
},
"builders": [
{
"type": "vsphere-iso",
"vcenter_server": "{{user `vcenter_server`}}",
"datacenter": "{{user `vm_datacenter`}}",
"datastore": "{{user `vm_datastore`}}",
"username": "{{user `vcenter_user`}}",
"password": "{{user `vcenter_password`}}",
"insecure_connection": "{{user `vcenter_insecure`}}",
"vm_name": "{{user `vm_name`}}",
"cluster": "{{user `vm_cluster`}}",
"resource_pool": "{{user `vm_resourcepool`}}",
"folder": "{{user `vm_folder`}}",
"ssh_username": "SomeUser",
"ssh_password": "SomePassword",
"CPUs": 1,
"RAM": 1024,
"RAM_reserve_all": false,
"disk_controller_type": "pvscsi",
"disk_size": 10240,
"disk_thin_provisioned": false,
"network_card": "vmxnet3",
"network": "{{user `install_net`}}",
"iso_paths": [
"[{{user `iso_datastore`}}] {{user `install_iso`}}",
"[{{user `vm_datastore`}}] {{user `iso_kickstart`}}"
],
"boot_wait": "10s",
"boot_command": [
"<tab><wait><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>ks=cdrom<enter>"
]
}
],
"provisioners": [
{
"type": "file",
"source": "{{user `install_dir`}}",
"destination": "/tmp/install"
},
{
"type": "shell",
"inline": [
"cd /tmp/install",
"bash install.sh"
]
}
]
}
The Snippet from my .gitlab-ci.yml for upload ISO and build the VM (again Centos7) looks like:
packer_build:
stage: build
tags:
- docker
only:
- master
variables:
PACKER_LOG: 1
KICKISO: "${OSBASE}-testsalt_${CI_BUILD_ID}.iso"
ISO_KICKSTART: "kickstart/${OSBASE}-testsalt_${CI_BUILD_ID}.iso"
script:
- export VM_NAME="${OSBASE}-testsalt_$(date '+%Y%m%d_%s')"
# prepare kickstart ISO and upload it to vCenter
- mkisofs -V OEMDRV -o "${KICKISO}" ks.cfg
- govc datastore.upload "${KICKISO}" "${ISO_KICKSTART}"
# build
- packer build -timestamp-ui packer.json
# remove kickstart ISO
- govc datastore.rm "${ISO_KICKSTART}"
# remove all cdrom drives (otherwise nodes result in having 2 cdrom drives)
- govc device.remove -vm "/${GOVC_DATACENTER}/vm/${VM_FOLDER}/${VM_NAME}" cdrom*
My question now is: Is there a way to the same thing (preseed from a secondary cdrom drive) for Debian derivates, too?