Building a CentOS Virtual Appliance (OVA) using Packer

This repo builds a CentOS 8 virtual appliance for vSphere bundled as an OVA. You can deploy the appliance and have it configured with no further action or need to login.

Key capabilities

Configure hostname
Configure IP settings
Set root password
Inject SSH keys for the root user
SSH enabled
Perl installed for VMware network customisation e.g. during SRM recovery

This project re-purposes almost all of the work from https://github.com/lamw/photonos-appliance

Requirements

MacOS or Linux Desktop
vCenter Server or Standalone ESXi host 6.x or greater
VMware OVFTool
Packer

packer builds the OVA on a remote ESXi host via the vmware-iso builder. This builder requires the SSH service running on the ESXi host, the advanced setting GuestIPHack enabled and firewall ports open for VNC. The easiest way to configure all 3 is to VIB from https://github.com/umich-vci/packer-vib

esxcli software acceptance set --level=CommunitySupported
esxcli software vib install -v https://github.com/umich-vci/packer-vib/releases/download/v1.0.0-1/packer.vib

Build Instructions

Step 1 - Clone the git repository

git clone https://github.com/mmcgilly/centos-appliance.git

Step 2 - Edit the centos-builder.json file to configure the vSphere endpoint for building the CentOS appliance

{
  "builder_host": "192.168.30.10",
  "builder_host_username": "root",
  "builder_host_password": "VMware1!",
  "builder_host_datastore": "vsanDatastore",
  "builder_host_portgroup": "VM Network"
}

Also edit the centos.json file to add your vSphere endpoint so the packer VM can be unregistered after the build.

"variables": {
    "centos_ovf_template": "centos.xml.template",
    "ovftool_deploy_vcenter": "vcsa.lab.local",
    "ovftool_deploy_vcenter_username": "administrator@vsphere.local",
    "ovftool_deploy_vcenter_password": "VMware1!"
  }

Note: If you need to change the initial root password on the CentOS appliance, take a look at centos-version.json and http/ks.cfg.

Step 3 - Start the build by running the build script which simply calls Packer and the respective build files

./build.sh

If you wish to automatically deploy the CentOS appliance after successfully building the OVA. You can edit the centos-dev.xml.template file and change the ovftool_deploy_* variables and run ./build.sh dev instead.