VSphere Template Post Processor

This post-processor creates VSphere templates from Virtualbox packer builders. It expects the VBoxManage output step to create OVF files.

Compatibility

So far this has been tested with Virtualbox 5.1.6, VSphere running ESXI 5.5 & 6.5, and packer 0.10.1 & 1.0.0. I see no reason why other combinations won't work as well.

Installing

Download your platform-specific binary from the latest releases page. Either put your binary somewhere accessible on your path or reference the absolute path to the binary in your $HOME/.packerconfig file, like this:

{
  "post-processors": {
    "vsphere-template": "/path/to/packer-post-processor-vsphere-template"
  }
}

Use the post-processor as follows in your packer manifest:

"post-processors": [
  {
    "type":            "vsphere-template",
    "host":            "{{user `vsphere_host`}}",
    "username":        "{{user `vsphere_username`}}",
    "password":        "{{user `vsphere_password`}}",
    "datacenter":      "{{user `vsphere_datacenter`}}",
    "datastore":       "{{user `vsphere_datastore`}}",
    "v_app_properties": [
      {
        "label": "Hostname",
        "description": "Hostname",
        "metadata": {
          "user_configurable": true,
          "type": "string",
          "key": "guestinfo.hostname",
          "value": ""
        }
      },
      ... so on
  }
]

The following attributes are available:

Attribute	Description	Required/Optional
host	VCenter host for API calls	required
username	Username to use for auth	required
password	Password to use for auth	required
datacenter	The datacenter where the template will be deployed	required
datastore	The datastore to back the template disk	required
resource_pool	The resource pool for the template (defaults to the default datacenter resource pool)	optional
folder	The vm folder to place the template in (defaults to the root of the datacenter)	optional
os_type	The VMWare os type to inject into the OVF (defaults to centos64Guest)	optional
os_id	The VMWare os id to inject into the OVF template (defaults to 107)	optional
os_version	The VMWare os version to inject into the OVF template (defaults to "")	optional
vm_name	The name of the OVF template to upload (defaults to the builder name)	optional
hardware_version	The VMWare hardware version to inject into the OVF (defaults to vmx-10)	optional
v_app_properties	The VMWare vapp properties to inject into the OVF ProductSection (defaults to [])	optional
network_name	The VMWare PortGroup/Network for OVF Network/NIC Section (defaults to "NAT")	optional