The vSphere plugin is able to create vSphere virtual machines for use with any VMware product. To achieve this, the plugin comes with three builders, and two post-processors to build the VM depending on the strategy you want to use.

Installation

To install this plugin add this code into your Packer configuration and run packer init

packer {
  required_plugins {
    vsphere = {
      version = "~> 1"
      source  = "github.com/hashicorp/vsphere"
    }
  }
}

Alternatively, you can use packer plugins install to manage installation of this plugin.

packer plugins install github.com/hashicorp/vsphere

Components

Builders:

• vsphere-iso - This builder starts from an ISO file and utilizes the vSphere API to build on a remote esx instance. This allows you to build vms even if you do not have SSH access to your vSphere cluster.

• vsphere-clone - This builder clones a vm from an existing template, then modifies it and saves it as a new template. It uses the vSphere API to build on a remote esx instance. This allows you to build vms even if you do not have SSH access to your vSphere cluster.

• vsphere-supervisor - This builder deploys a vm to a vSphere Supervisor cluster, using the VM-Service API. This allows you to build vms without spec yaml files and configure them after using the Packer provisioners.

Post-Processors

• vsphere - The Packer vSphere post-processor takes an artifact and uploads it to a vSphere endpoint.

• vsphere-template - The Packer vSphere Template post-processor takes an artifact from the vmware-iso builder, built on an ESXi host (i.e. remote) or an artifact from the vSphere post-processor, marks the VM as a template, and leaves it in the path of your choice.