Vsphere-clone customize Unknown root level key in template

Packer
1

I am trying to use packer to update a template so that it is patched and than convert back to template. However, the customize setting doesn’t seem to work and won’t run and I get the following error:
Failed to parse template: 1 error occurred:
* Unknown root level key in template: ‘customize’

example below:
“customize”: {
“linux_options”: {
“host_name”: “packer-test”,
“domain”: “test.internal”
},
“network_interface”: {
“ipv4_address”: “10.0.0.10”,
“ipv4_netmask”: “24”
},
“ipv4_gateway”: “10.0.0.1”,

}

Using vsphere-clone builder a bad way to do this or just not supported? Any assistance would be appreciated.

2

Hey there,

Could you share the full build block, please?

4 
{

"builders": [{
	"type": "vsphere-clone",
	"vcenter_server": "FQDN of vcenter",
	"username": "secret username",
	"password": "secret password",
	"insecure_connection": "true",
	"template": "name of template",
	"vm_name": "name of template2",
	"cluster": "cluster name",
	"host": "esx host",
	"datastore": "datastore used",
    "convert_to_template": "true",

	"ssh_username": "sshusername",
    "ssh_password": "sshusername",
    "ssh_wait_timeout": "20m",
    "boot_command": [
        "<enter><wait><f6><esc><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>"
		]
}],

“customize”: {
“linux_options”: {
“host_name”: “name of template2”,
“domain”: “domain used”
},
“network_interface”: {
“ipv4_address”: “x.x.x.x”,
“ipv4_netmask”: “24”
},
“ipv4_gateway”: “x.x.x.x”

	   },

"provisioners": [{
    "type": "shell",
    "inline": [ "sudo yum -y update" ]
}]

}

5

Hopefully this came out correctly. I made small edits to keep the information private of course.

6

The customize must be inside the vsphere-clone block. Like:

{

"builders": [{
	"type": "vsphere-clone",
	"vcenter_server": "FQDN of vcenter",
	"username": "secret username",
	"password": "secret password",
	"insecure_connection": "true",
	"template": "name of template",
	"vm_name": "name of template2",
	"cluster": "cluster name",
	"host": "esx host",
	"datastore": "datastore used",
    "convert_to_template": "true",

	"ssh_username": "sshusername",
    "ssh_password": "sshusername",
    "ssh_wait_timeout": "20m",
    "boot_command": [
        "<enter><wait><f6><esc><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>"
		],
    “customize”: {
           “linux_options”: {
                      “host_name”: “name of template2”,
                      “domain”: “domain used”
           },
           “network_interface”: {
                      “ipv4_address”: “x.x.x.x”,
                      “ipv4_netmask”: “24”
           },
           “ipv4_gateway”: “x.x.x.x”
     }
}],
"provisioners": [{
    "type": "shell",
    "inline": [ "sudo yum -y update" ]
}]
}
7

Ah thank you so much. That got me passed a lot. I seem to be stuck at the “Waiting for SSH to become available” part now. My guess is I have syntax in the wrong place. Doing some additional googling.

8

Figured that part out, it was an issue where the template was deploying to a different vlan than the IP range I was using for the VM. Updated that and no issues.

1 Like