Packer ESXi VM Provisioner

Overview

Simple bash script using packer for auto provisioning virtual machines to a free VMWare ESXi server. This script has been tested with VMWare ESXi version 6. At the moment the following guest operating systems are supported:

Ubuntu 14.04 (ubuntu-trusty)

Features

Connect to ESXi server via SSH
Upload operating system ISO to datastore
Create virtual machine with specified parameters
Power on virtual machine and executing unattended operating system installation
Customize virtual machine with bash, ansible, chef, puppet and many more
Power off virtual machine and cleanup resources
Power on virtual machine to work with

Prerequisites

VM Network

The virtual machine relies on an existing DCHP server on the specified vm network

ESXi Host

SSH

Enable SSH access on ESXi Host:

Allow network communication for Packer

Download init script to local PC:

wget http://raw.githubusercontent.com/chrisipa/packer-esxi/master/local.sh

Copy init script to ESXi host via SSH

scp local.sh root@esxi:/etc/rc.local.d/local.sh

Make init script executable on ESXi host

ssh root@esxi chmod +x /etc/rc.local.d/local.sh

Execute init script on ESXi host once
```
ssh root@esxi /etc/rc.local.d/local.sh
```

Packer Host

Install additional software packages:
```
sudo apt-get install git sshpass
```

Download and install packer from the website:

wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/packer/1.0.0/packer_1.0.0_linux_amd64.zip
sudo unzip packer_1.0.0_linux_amd64.zip -d /usr/local/bin
rm -f packer_1.0.0_linux_amd64.zip

Usage

Plain Linux

Checkout project from GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/chrisipa/packer-esxi.git

Change to project directory:
```
cd packer-esxi
```

Run packer-esxi command:

./packer-esxi --help

--------------------------
Packer ESXi VM Provisioner
--------------------------

Usage:
  ./packer-esxi [Options] <Args>

Options:
  --esxi-server         <server>        The ESXi server
  --esxi-username       <username>      The ESXi username
  --esxi-password       <password>      The ESXi password
  --esxi-datastore      <datastore>     The ESXi datastore
  --vm-name             <name>          The VM name
  --vm-cores            <cores>         The number of virtual CPU Cores of the VM
  --vm-ram-size         <ram>           The RAM size of the VM (in MB)
  --vm-disk-size        <disk>          The Disk size of the VM (in GB)
  --vm-network          <network>       The Network name of the VM
  --os-type             <os>            The type of the OS
  --os-proxy            <proxy>         The proxy of the OS
  --os-username         <username>      The username of the OS
  --os-password         <password>      The password of the OS
  --os-domain           <domain>        The network domain of the OS
  --os-keyboard-layout  <layout>        The keyboard layout of the OS
  --os-locale           <locale>        The locale of the OS
  --os-timezone         <timezone>      The timezone of the OS
  --os-docker           <boolean>       Install docker engine in the OS
  --help                                Print this help text

Example:
  ./packer-esxi --esxi-server esxi.my.domain \
     --esxi-username root \
     --esxi-password my-password \
     --esxi-datastore my-datastore \
     --vm-name my-vm \
     --vm-cores 1 \
     --vm-ram-size  512 \
     --vm-disk-size 10 \
     --vm-network "VM Network" \
     --os-type ubuntu-trusty \
     --os-proxy none | http://10.10.10.1:3128/ \
     --os-username my-username \
     --os-password my-password \
     --os-domain my.domain \
     --os-locale de_DE.UTF-8 \
     --os-keyboard-layout de \
     --os-timezone Europe/Berlin \
     --os-docker true

Docker

Run via docker command:

docker run --rm -v $HOME/.packer:/root/.packer -it chrisipa/packer-esxi

Integrations

Jenkins

You can easily integrate the docker container into a parameterized build:

Just execute a shell command with the following content:

#!/bin/bash +x

# specify image name
imageName="chrisipa/packer-esxi"

# pull docker image from registry
docker pull "$imageName"

# execute docker run
docker run --rm -v $HOME/.packer:/root/.packer -t "$imageName" \
--esxi-server "$ESXI_SERVER" \
--esxi-username "$ESXI_USERNAME" \
--esxi-password "$ESXI_PASSWORD" \
--esxi-datastore "$ESXI_DATASTORE" \
--vm-name "$VM_NAME" \
--vm-cores "$VM_CORES" \
--vm-ram-size "$VM_RAM_SIZE" \
--vm-disk-size "$VM_DISK_SIZE" \
--vm-network "$VM_NETWORK" \
--os-type "$OS_TYPE" \
--os-proxy "$OS_PROXY" \
--os-username "$OS_USERNAME" \
--os-password "$OS_PASSWORD" \
--os-domain "$OS_DOMAIN" \
--os-locale "$OS_LOCALE" \
--os-keyboard-layout "$OS_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT" \
--os-timezone "$OS_TIMEZONE" \
--os-docker "$OS_DOCKER"