Packer builders for Windows server core images optimized for containers.

Windows Server Core

This builds different versions of Windows server images ready for containers.

To be used for on-premise deployments of docker hosts or Kubernetes nodes.

Images

Name	Build	Core
windows-server-core-1709	16299	yes
windows-server-insider-preview	17093	yes
windows-server-2016	14393	no

Status

Experimental

This is a work in progress.

What works

TBD

What doesn't work

Virtualbox images cannot currently be used for kubelet because of lack of support for winstats performance counters.

error: failed to run Kubelet: unable to read physical memory

Prerequisites

Install VirtualBox (or libvirt on Linux based systems), packer, packer-provisioner-windows-update plugin and vagrant. If you are using Windows and Chocolatey, you can install everything with:

choco install -y virtualbox packer packer-provisioner-windows-update vagrant

Usage

libvirt

Libvirt is preferred, because kubelet doesn't work well on virtualbox

Build the base box for the vagrant-libvirt provider with:

make build-windows-server-core-1709-libvirt

You can then add the base box to your local vagrant installation with:

vagrant box add -f windows-server-core-1709 windows-server-core-1709-virtualbox.box

And test this base box by launching an example Vagrant environment:

cd example
vagrant up --provider=libvirt # or --provider=virtualbox

NB if you are having trouble running the example with the vagrant libvirt provider check the libvirt logs in the host (e.g. sudo tail -f /var/log/libvirt/qemu/example_default.log) and in the guest (inside C:\Windows\Temp).

Then test with a more complete example:

git clone https://github.com/rgl/customize-windows-vagrant
cd customize-windows-vagrant
vagrant up --provider=virtualbox # or --provider=libvirt

If you want to access the UI run:

spicy --uri 'spice+unix:///tmp/packer-windows-2016-amd64-libvirt-spice.socket'

QCOW2

To build compatible qcow2 images, e.g for OpenStack, do:

make windows-server-core-1709.qcow2

Remote powershell

TBD

WinRM access

You can connect to this machine through WinRM to run a remote command, e.g.:

winrs -r:localhost:55985 -u:vagrant -p:vagrant "whoami /all"

NB the exact local WinRM port should be displayed by vagrant, in this case:

==> default: Forwarding ports...
    default: 5985 (guest) => 55985 (host) (adapter 1)

Troubleshooting

NB if the build fails with something like Post-processor failed: write /tmp/packer073329394/packer-windows-2016-amd64-virtualbox-1505050546-disk001.vmdk: no space left on device you need to increase your temporary partition size or change its location as described in the packer TMPDIR/TMP environment variable documentation.

NB if you are having trouble building the base box due to floppy drive removal errors try adding, as a workaround, "post_shutdown_delay": "30s", to the windows-server-2016.json file.

Build warnings

Docker hyper-v

Some errors about Hyper-V during Docker EE installation will appear.

This is normal for now, packer+qemu doesn't enable nested virtualization (is it possible?)

windows-server-core-1709-libvirt: Installing Docker EE preview...
    windows-server-core-1709-libvirt: WARNING: A restart is required to enable the one or more features. Please restart your machine.
    windows-server-core-1709-libvirt: Install-Package : A prerequisite check for the Hyper-V feature failed.
    windows-server-core-1709-libvirt: 1. Hyper-V cannot be installed: The processor does not have required virtualization capabilities.
    windows-server-core-1709-libvirt: At C:\Windows\Temp\script-5a907637-3848-8817-1cc6-b042712d42db.ps1:15 char:1
    windows-server-core-1709-libvirt: + Install-Package -Name docker -ProviderName DockerProvider -RequiredVe ...
    windows-server-core-1709-libvirt: + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    windows-server-core-1709-libvirt:     + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (Hyper-V:String) [Install-Package], Exception
    windows-server-core-1709-libvirt:     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Alteration_PrerequisiteCheck_Failed,Microsoft.Windows.ServerManager.Commands.AddWindowsF
    windows-server-core-1709-libvirt:    eatureCommand,Microsoft.PowerShell.PackageManagement.Cmdlets.InstallPackage

Credits

This is a fork of https://github.com/rgl/windows-2016-vagrant

alexandrem/windows-server-core-k8s