Windows Templates for Packer

Introduction

This repository contains Windows templates that can be used to create boxes for Vagrant using Packer (Website) (Github).

It is based on https://github.com/joefitzgerald/packer-windows and has been adapted to my own needs. I've replaced the way updates are installed to cut down the build time. Chocolatey and Rsync are now installed by default and I've removed files I don't use to reduce clutter.

Packer Version

Packer 1.0.0 or greater is required.

Product Keys

The Autounattend.xml files are configured to work correctly with trial ISOs (which will be downloaded and cached for you the first time you perform a packer build). If you would like to use retail or volume license ISOs, you need to update the UserData>ProductKey element as follows:

Uncomment the <Key>...</Key> element
Insert your product key into the Key element

If you are going to configure your VM as a KMS client, you can use the product keys at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj612867.aspx. These are the default values used in the Key element.

Windows Updates

These templates use WSUS Offline to install required Windows updates. This avoids multiple downloads of the same updates between builds but you'll have to run the wsusoffline.sh script at least once before you can run Packer.

OpenSSH / WinRM

Packer supports WinRM but I couldn't get the windows-restart provisioner work reliably with it. The WinRM command triggering the restart returns 3011 as the exit code which means "Restart required". The windows-restart provisioner then aborts the build because of a non-zero exit code.

Using .box Files With Vagrant

The generated box files include a Vagrantfile template that is suitable for use with Vagrant 1.6.2+, which includes native support for Windows and uses WinRM to communicate with the box.

Getting Started

Trial versions of Windows 7 / 10 are used by default. These images can be used for 90 days without activation.

Alternatively – if you have access to MSDN or TechNet – you can download retail or volume license ISO images and place them in the iso directory. If you do, you should supply appropriate values for iso_url (e.g. ./iso/<path to your iso>.iso) and iso_checksum (e.g. <the md5 of your iso>) to the Packer command.

Variables

The Packer templates support the following variables:

Name	Description
`iso_url`	Path or URL to ISO file
`iso_checksum`	Checksum (see also `iso_checksum_type`) of the ISO file
`iso_checksum_type`	The checksum algorithm to use (out of those supported by Packer)
`autounattend`	Path to the Autounattend.xml file

Contributing

Pull requests welcomed.

ngld/packer-windows