VMware Builder (from VMX)

Type: vmware-vmx Artifact BuilderId: mitchellh.vmware If remote_type is esx: Artifact BuilderId: mitchellh.vmware-esx

This VMware Packer builder is able to create VMware virtual machines from an existing VMware virtual machine (a VMX file). It currently supports building virtual machines on hosts running VMware Fusion Professional for OS X, VMware Workstation for Linux and Windows, and VMware Player on Linux.

The builder builds a virtual machine by cloning the VMX file using the clone capabilities introduced in VMware Fusion Professional 6, Workstation 10, and Player 6. After cloning the VM, it provisions software within the new machine, shuts it down, and compacts the disks. The resulting folder contains a new VMware virtual machine.

Basic Example

Here is an example. This example is fully functional as long as the source path points to a real VMX file with the proper settings:

JSON

{
  "type": "vmware-vmx",
  "source_path": "/path/to/a/vm.vmx",
  "ssh_username": "root",
  "ssh_password": "root",
  "shutdown_command": "shutdown -P now"
}

HCL2

source "vmware-vmx" "basic-example" {
  source_path = "/path/to/a/vm.vmx"
  ssh_username = "root"
  ssh_password = "root"
  shutdown_command = "shutdown -P now"
}

build {
  sources = ["sources.vmware-vmx.basic-example"]
}

Configuration Reference

There are many configuration options available for the VMware builder. They are organized below into two categories: required and optional. Within each category, the available options are alphabetized and described.

There are many configuration options available for the builder. In addition to the items listed here, you will want to look at the general configuration references for HTTP, Floppy, Boot, Driver, Output, Run, Shutdown, Communicator, Tools, vmx, Export, configuration references, which are necessary for this build to succeed and can be found further down the page.

Required:

source_path (string) - Path to the source VMX file to clone. If remote_type is enabled then this specifies a path on the remote_host.

Optional:

linked (bool) - By default Packer creates a 'full' clone of the virtual machine specified in source_path. The resultant virtual machine is fully independant from the parent it was cloned from.
Setting linked to true instead causes Packer to create the virtual machine as a 'linked' clone. Linked clones use and require ongoing access to the disks of the parent virtual machine. The benefit of a linked clone is that the clones virtual disk is typically very much smaller than would be the case for a full clone. Additionally, the cloned virtual machine can also be created much faster. Creating a linked clone will typically only be of benefit in some advanced build scenarios. Most users will wish to create a full clone instead. Defaults to false.
attach_snapshot (string) - Default to null/empty. The name of an existing snapshot to which the builder shall attach the VM before starting it. If no snapshot is specified the builder will simply start the VM from it's current state i.e. snapshot.
vm_name (string) - This is the name of the VMX file for the new virtual machine, without the file extension. By default this is packer-BUILDNAME, where "BUILDNAME" is the name of the build.
snapshot_name (string) - This is the name of the initial snapshot created after provisioning and cleanup. if left blank, no initial snapshot will be created

Extra Disk Configuration

Optional:

disk_additional_size ([]uint) - The size(s) of any additional hard disks for the VM in megabytes. If this is not specified then the VM will only contain a primary hard disk. The builder uses expandable, not fixed-size virtual hard disks, so the actual file representing the disk will not use the full size unless it is full.
disk_adapter_type (string) - The adapter type of the VMware virtual disk to create. This option is for advanced usage, modify only if you know what you're doing. Some of the options you can specify are ide, sata, nvme or scsi (which uses the "lsilogic" scsi interface by default). If you specify another option, Packer will assume that you're specifying a scsi interface of that specified type. For more information, please consult Virtual Disk Manager User's Guide for desktop VMware clients. For ESXi, refer to the proper ESXi documentation.
vmdk_name (string) - The filename of the virtual disk that'll be created, without the extension. This defaults to "disk".

disk_type_id (string) - The type of VMware virtual disk to create. This option is for advanced usage.

For desktop VMware clients:

Type ID	Description
`0`	Growable virtual disk contained in a single file (monolithic sparse).
`1`	Growable virtual disk split into 2GB files (split sparse).
`2`	Preallocated virtual disk contained in a single file (monolithic flat).
`3`	Preallocated virtual disk split into 2GB files (split flat).
`4`	Preallocated virtual disk compatible with ESX server (VMFS flat).
`5`	Compressed disk optimized for streaming.

The default is 1.

For ESXi, this defaults to zeroedthick. The available options for ESXi are: zeroedthick, eagerzeroedthick, thin. rdm:dev, rdmp:dev, 2gbsparse are not supported. Due to default disk compaction, when using zeroedthick or eagerzeroedthick set skip_compaction to true.

For more information, please consult the Virtual Disk Manager User's Guide for desktop VMware clients. For ESXi, refer to the proper ESXi documentation.

Http directory configuration

Packer will create an http server serving http_directory when it is set, a random free port will be selected and the architecture of the directory referenced will be available in your builder.

Example usage from a builder:

wget http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/foo/bar/preseed.cfg

Optional:

http_directory (string) - Path to a directory to serve using an HTTP server. The files in this directory will be available over HTTP that will be requestable from the virtual machine. This is useful for hosting kickstart files and so on. By default this is an empty string, which means no HTTP server will be started. The address and port of the HTTP server will be available as variables in boot_command. This is covered in more detail below.
http_content (map[string]string) - Key/Values to serve using an HTTP server. http_content works like and conflicts with http_directory. The keys represent the paths and the values contents, the keys must start with a slash, ex: /path/to/file. http_content is useful for hosting kickstart files and so on. By default this is empty, which means no HTTP server will be started. The address and port of the HTTP server will be available as variables in boot_command. This is covered in more detail below. Example:
```
  http_content = {
    "/a/b"     = file("http/b")
    "/foo/bar" = templatefile("${path.root}/preseed.cfg", { packages = ["nginx"] })
  }
```
http_port_min (int) - These are the minimum and maximum port to use for the HTTP server started to serve the http_directory. Because Packer often runs in parallel, Packer will choose a randomly available port in this range to run the HTTP server. If you want to force the HTTP server to be on one port, make this minimum and maximum port the same. By default the values are 8000 and 9000, respectively.
http_port_max (int) - HTTP Port Max
http_bind_address (string) - This is the bind address for the HTTP server. Defaults to 0.0.0.0 so that it will work with any network interface.

Floppy configuration

A floppy can be made available for your build. This is most useful for unattended Windows installs, which look for an Autounattend.xml file on removable media. By default, no floppy will be attached. All files listed in this setting get placed into the root directory of the floppy and the floppy is attached as the first floppy device. The summary size of the listed files must not exceed 1.44 MB. The supported ways to move large files into the OS are using http_directory or the file provisioner.

Optional:

floppy_files ([]string) - A list of files to place onto a floppy disk that is attached when the VM is booted. Currently, no support exists for creating sub-directories on the floppy. Wildcard characters (\*, ?, and []) are allowed. Directory names are also allowed, which will add all the files found in the directory to the floppy.
floppy_dirs ([]string) - A list of directories to place onto the floppy disk recursively. This is similar to the floppy_files option except that the directory structure is preserved. This is useful for when your floppy disk includes drivers or if you just want to organize it's contents as a hierarchy. Wildcard characters (\*, ?, and []) are allowed. The maximum summary size of all files in the listed directories are the same as in floppy_files.
floppy_content (map[string]string) - Key/Values to add to the floppy disk. The keys represent the paths, and the values contents. It can be used alongside floppy_files or floppy_dirs, which is useful to add large files without loading them into memory. If any paths are specified by both, the contents in floppy_content will take precedence.
Usage example (HCL):
```
floppy_files = ["vendor-data"]
floppy_content = {
  "meta-data" = jsonencode(local.instance_data)
  "user-data" = templatefile("user-data", { packages = ["nginx"] })
}
floppy_label = "cidata"
```
floppy_label (string) - Floppy Label

CD configuration

An iso (CD) containing custom files can be made available for your build.

By default, no extra CD will be attached. All files listed in this setting get placed into the root directory of the CD and the CD is attached as the second CD device.

This config exists to work around modern operating systems that have no way to mount floppy disks, which was our previous go-to for adding files at boot time.

Optional:

cd_files ([]string) - A list of files to place onto a CD that is attached when the VM is booted. This can include either files or directories; any directories will be copied onto the CD recursively, preserving directory structure hierarchy. Symlinks will have the link's target copied into the directory tree on the CD where the symlink was. File globbing is allowed.
Usage example (JSON):
```
"cd_files": ["./somedirectory/meta-data", "./somedirectory/user-data"],
"cd_label": "cidata",
```
Usage example (HCL):
```
cd_files = ["./somedirectory/meta-data", "./somedirectory/user-data"]
cd_label = "cidata"
```
The above will create a CD with two files, user-data and meta-data in the CD root. This specific example is how you would create a CD that can be used for an Ubuntu 20.04 autoinstall.
Since globbing is also supported,
```
cd_files = ["./somedirectory/*"]
cd_label = "cidata"
```
Would also be an acceptable way to define the above cd. The difference between providing the directory with or without the glob is whether the directory itself or its contents will be at the CD root.
Use of this option assumes that you have a command line tool installed that can handle the iso creation. Packer will use one of the following tools:
- xorriso
- mkisofs
- hdiutil (normally found in macOS)
- oscdimg (normally found in Windows as part of the Windows ADK)
cd_content (map[string]string) - Key/Values to add to the CD. The keys represent the paths, and the values contents. It can be used alongside cd_files, which is useful to add large files without loading them into memory. If any paths are specified by both, the contents in cd_content will take precedence.
Usage example (HCL):
```
cd_files = ["vendor-data"]
cd_content = {
  "meta-data" = jsonencode(local.instance_data)
  "user-data" = templatefile("user-data", { packages = ["nginx"] })
}
cd_label = "cidata"
```
cd_label (string) - CD Label

Export configuration

Optional:

format (string) - Either "ovf", "ova" or "vmx", this specifies the output format of the exported virtual machine. This defaults to "ovf" for remote (esx) builds, and "vmx" for local builds. Before using this option, you need to install ovftool. Since ovftool is only capable of password based authentication remote_password must be set when exporting the VM from a remote instance. If you are building locally, Packer will create a vmx and then export that vm to an ovf or ova. Packer will not delete the vmx and vmdk files; this is left up to the user if you don't want to keep those files.
ovftool_options ([]string) - Extra options to pass to ovftool during export. Each item in the array is a new argument. The options --noSSLVerify, --skipManifestCheck, and --targetType are used by Packer for remote exports, and should not be passed to this argument. For ovf/ova exports from local builds, Packer does not automatically set any ovftool options.
skip_export (bool) - Defaults to false. When true, Packer will not export the VM. This can be useful if the build output is not the resultant image, but created inside the VM.
keep_registered (bool) - Set this to true if you would like to keep a remotely-built VM registered with the remote ESXi server. If you do not need to export the vm, then also set skip_export: true in order to avoid unnecessarily using ovftool to export the vm. Defaults to false.
skip_compaction (bool) - VMware-created disks are defragmented and compacted at the end of the build process using vmware-vdiskmanager or vmkfstools in ESXi. In certain rare cases, this might actually end up making the resulting disks slightly larger. If you find this to be the case, you can disable compaction using this configuration value. Defaults to false. Default to true for ESXi when disk_type_id is not explicitly defined and false otherwise.

Output configuration

Optional:

output_directory (string) - This is the path on your local machine (the one running Packer) to the directory where the resulting virtual machine will be created. This may be relative or absolute. If relative, the path is relative to the working directory when packer is executed.
If you are running a remote esx build, the output_dir is the path on your local machine (the machine running Packer) to which Packer will export the vm if you have "skip_export": false. If you want to manage the virtual machine's path on the remote datastore, use remote_output_dir.
This directory must not exist or be empty prior to running the builder.
By default this is output-BUILDNAME where "BUILDNAME" is the name of the build.
remote_output_directory (string) - This is the directoy on your remote esx host where you will save your vm, relative to your remote_datastore.
This option's default value is your vm_name, and the final path of your vm will be vmfs/volumes/$remote_datastore/$vm_name/$vm_name.vmx where $remote_datastore and $vm_name match their corresponding template options
For example, setting "remote_output_directory": "path/to/subdir will create a directory /vmfs/volumes/remote_datastore/path/to/subdir.
Packer will not create the remote datastore for you; it must already exist. However, Packer will create all directories defined in the option that do not currently exist.
This option will be ignored unless you are building on a remote esx host.

Run configuration

Note: If vnc_over_websocket is set to true, any other VNC configuration will be ignored.

Optional:

headless (bool) - Packer defaults to building VMware virtual machines by launching a GUI that shows the console of the machine being built. When this value is set to true, the machine will start without a console. For VMware machines, Packer will output VNC connection information in case you need to connect to the console to debug the build process. Some users have experienced issues where Packer cannot properly connect to a VM if it is headless; this appears to be a result of not ever having launched the VMWare GUI and accepting the evaluation license, or supplying a real license. If you experience this, launching VMWare and accepting the license should resolve your problem.
vnc_bind_address (string) - The IP address that should be binded to for VNC. By default packer will use 127.0.0.1 for this. If you wish to bind to all interfaces use 0.0.0.0.
vnc_port_min (int) - The minimum and maximum port to use for VNC access to the virtual machine. The builder uses VNC to type the initial boot_command. Because Packer generally runs in parallel, Packer uses a randomly chosen port in this range that appears available. By default this is 5900 to 6000. The minimum and maximum ports are inclusive.
vnc_port_max (int) - VNC Port Max
vnc_disable_password (bool) - Don't auto-generate a VNC password that is used to secure the VNC communication with the VM. This must be set to true if building on ESXi 6.5 and 6.7 with VNC enabled. Defaults to false.
vnc_over_websocket (bool) - When set to true, Packer will connect to the remote VNC server over a websocket connection and any other VNC configuration option will be ignored. Remote builds using ESXi 6.7+ allows to connect to the VNC server only over websocket, for these the vnc_over_websocket must be set to true.
insecure_connection (bool) - Do not validate VNC over websocket server's TLS certificate. Defaults to false.

Driver configuration

Optional:

cleanup_remote_cache (bool) - When set to true, Packer will cleanup the cache folder where the ISO file is stored during the build on the remote machine. By default, this is set to false.
fusion_app_path (string) - Path to "VMware Fusion.app". By default this is /Applications/VMware Fusion.app but this setting allows you to customize this.
remote_type (string) - The type of remote machine that will be used to build this VM rather than a local desktop product. The only value accepted for this currently is esx5. If this is not set, a desktop product will be used. By default, this is not set.
remote_datastore (string) - The path to the datastore where the VM will be stored on the ESXi machine.
remote_cache_datastore (string) - The path to the datastore where supporting files will be stored during the build on the remote machine.
remote_cache_directory (string) - The path where the ISO and/or floppy files will be stored during the build on the remote machine. The path is relative to the remote_cache_datastore on the remote machine.
remote_host (string) - The host of the remote machine used for access. This is only required if remote_type is enabled.
remote_port (int) - The SSH port of the remote machine
remote_username (string) - The SSH username used to access the remote machine.
remote_password (string) - The SSH password for access to the remote machine.
remote_private_key_file (string) - The SSH key for access to the remote machine.
skip_validate_credentials (bool) - When Packer is preparing to run a remote esxi build, and export is not disable, by default it runs a no-op ovftool command to make sure that the remote_username and remote_password given are valid. If you set this flag to true, Packer will skip this validation. Default: false.

Tools configuration

Optional:

tools_upload_flavor (string) - The flavor of the VMware Tools ISO to upload into the VM. Valid values are darwin, linux, and windows. By default, this is empty, which means VMware tools won't be uploaded.
tools_upload_path (string) - The path in the VM to upload the VMware tools. This only takes effect if tools_upload_flavor is non-empty. This is a configuration template that has a single valid variable: Flavor, which will be the value of tools_upload_flavor. By default the upload path is set to {{.Flavor}}.iso. This setting is not used when remote_type is esx5.
tools_source_path (string) - The path on your local machine to fetch the vmware tools from. If this is not set but the tools_upload_flavor is set, then Packer will try to load the VMWare tools from the VMWare installation directory.

VMX configuration

Optional:

vmx_data (map[string]string) - Arbitrary key/values to enter into the virtual machine VMX file. This is for advanced users who want to set properties that aren't yet supported by the builder.
vmx_data_post (map[string]string) - Identical to vmx_data, except that it is run after the virtual machine is shutdown, and before the virtual machine is exported.
vmx_remove_ethernet_interfaces (bool) - Remove all ethernet interfaces from the VMX file after building. This is for advanced users who understand the ramifications, but is useful for building Vagrant boxes since Vagrant will create ethernet interfaces when provisioning a box. Defaults to false.
display_name (string) - The name that will appear in your vSphere client, and will be used for the vmx basename. This will override the "displayname" value in your vmx file. It will also override the "displayname" if you have set it in the "vmx_data" Packer option. This option is useful if you are chaining vmx builds and want to make sure that the display name of each step in the chain is unique.

Communicator configuration

Optional common fields:

communicator (string) - Packer currently supports three kinds of communicators:
- none - No communicator will be used. If this is set, most provisioners also can't be used.
- ssh - An SSH connection will be established to the machine. This is usually the default.
- winrm - A WinRM connection will be established.
In addition to the above, some builders have custom communicators they can use. For example, the Docker builder has a "docker" communicator that uses docker exec and docker cp to execute scripts and copy files.
pause_before_connecting (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - We recommend that you enable SSH or WinRM as the very last step in your guest's bootstrap script, but sometimes you may have a race condition where you need Packer to wait before attempting to connect to your guest.
If you end up in this situation, you can use the template option pause_before_connecting. By default, there is no pause. For example if you set pause_before_connecting to 10m Packer will check whether it can connect, as normal. But once a connection attempt is successful, it will disconnect and then wait 10 minutes before connecting to the guest and beginning provisioning.

Optional SSH fields:

ssh_host (string) - The address to SSH to. This usually is automatically configured by the builder.
ssh_port (int) - The port to connect to SSH. This defaults to 22.
ssh_username (string) - The username to connect to SSH with. Required if using SSH.
ssh_password (string) - A plaintext password to use to authenticate with SSH.
ssh_ciphers ([]string) - This overrides the value of ciphers supported by default by Golang. The default value is [ "aes128-gcm@openssh.com", "chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com", "aes128-ctr", "aes192-ctr", "aes256-ctr", ]
Valid options for ciphers include: "aes128-ctr", "aes192-ctr", "aes256-ctr", "aes128-gcm@openssh.com", "chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com", "arcfour256", "arcfour128", "arcfour", "aes128-cbc", "3des-cbc",
ssh_clear_authorized_keys (bool) - If true, Packer will attempt to remove its temporary key from ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and /root/.ssh/authorized_keys. This is a mostly cosmetic option, since Packer will delete the temporary private key from the host system regardless of whether this is set to true (unless the user has set the -debug flag). Defaults to "false"; currently only works on guests with sed installed.
ssh_key_exchange_algorithms ([]string) - If set, Packer will override the value of key exchange (kex) algorithms supported by default by Golang. Acceptable values include: "curve25519-sha256@libssh.org", "ecdh-sha2-nistp256", "ecdh-sha2-nistp384", "ecdh-sha2-nistp521", "diffie-hellman-group14-sha1", and "diffie-hellman-group1-sha1".
ssh_certificate_file (string) - Path to user certificate used to authenticate with SSH. The ~ can be used in path and will be expanded to the home directory of current user.
ssh_pty (bool) - If true, a PTY will be requested for the SSH connection. This defaults to false.
ssh_timeout (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The time to wait for SSH to become available. Packer uses this to determine when the machine has booted so this is usually quite long. Example value: 10m. This defaults to 5m, unless ssh_handshake_attempts is set.
ssh_disable_agent_forwarding (bool) - If true, SSH agent forwarding will be disabled. Defaults to false.
ssh_handshake_attempts (int) - The number of handshakes to attempt with SSH once it can connect. This defaults to 10, unless a ssh_timeout is set.
ssh_bastion_host (string) - A bastion host to use for the actual SSH connection.
ssh_bastion_port (int) - The port of the bastion host. Defaults to 22.
ssh_bastion_agent_auth (bool) - If true, the local SSH agent will be used to authenticate with the bastion host. Defaults to false.
ssh_bastion_username (string) - The username to connect to the bastion host.
ssh_bastion_password (string) - The password to use to authenticate with the bastion host.
ssh_bastion_interactive (bool) - If true, the keyboard-interactive used to authenticate with bastion host.
ssh_bastion_private_key_file (string) - Path to a PEM encoded private key file to use to authenticate with the bastion host. The ~ can be used in path and will be expanded to the home directory of current user.
ssh_bastion_certificate_file (string) - Path to user certificate used to authenticate with bastion host. The ~ can be used in path and will be expanded to the home directory of current user.
ssh_file_transfer_method (string) - scp or sftp - How to transfer files, Secure copy (default) or SSH File Transfer Protocol.
NOTE: Guests using Windows with Win32-OpenSSH v9.1.0.0p1-Beta, scp (the default protocol for copying data) returns a a non-zero error code since the MOTW cannot be set, which cause any file transfer to fail. As a workaround you can override the transfer protocol with SFTP instead ssh_file_transfer_protocol = "sftp".
ssh_proxy_host (string) - A SOCKS proxy host to use for SSH connection
ssh_proxy_port (int) - A port of the SOCKS proxy. Defaults to 1080.
ssh_proxy_username (string) - The optional username to authenticate with the proxy server.
ssh_proxy_password (string) - The optional password to use to authenticate with the proxy server.
ssh_keep_alive_interval (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - How often to send "keep alive" messages to the server. Set to a negative value (-1s) to disable. Example value: 10s. Defaults to 5s.
ssh_read_write_timeout (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The amount of time to wait for a remote command to end. This might be useful if, for example, packer hangs on a connection after a reboot. Example: 5m. Disabled by default.
ssh_remote_tunnels ([]string) -
ssh_local_tunnels ([]string) -

Optional WinRM fields:

winrm_username (string) - The username to use to connect to WinRM.
winrm_password (string) - The password to use to connect to WinRM.
winrm_host (string) - The address for WinRM to connect to.
NOTE: If using an Amazon EBS builder, you can specify the interface WinRM connects to via ssh_interface
winrm_no_proxy (bool) - Setting this to true adds the remote host:port to the NO_PROXY environment variable. This has the effect of bypassing any configured proxies when connecting to the remote host. Default to false.
winrm_port (int) - The WinRM port to connect to. This defaults to 5985 for plain unencrypted connection and 5986 for SSL when winrm_use_ssl is set to true.
winrm_timeout (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The amount of time to wait for WinRM to become available. This defaults to 30m since setting up a Windows machine generally takes a long time.
winrm_use_ssl (bool) - If true, use HTTPS for WinRM.
winrm_insecure (bool) - If true, do not check server certificate chain and host name.
winrm_use_ntlm (bool) - If true, NTLMv2 authentication (with session security) will be used for WinRM, rather than default (basic authentication), removing the requirement for basic authentication to be enabled within the target guest. Further reading for remote connection authentication can be found here.

Shutdown Configuration

shutdown_command (string) - The command to use to gracefully shut down the machine once all provisioning is complete. By default this is an empty string, which tells Packer to just forcefully shut down the machine. This setting can be safely omitted if for example, a shutdown command to gracefully halt the machine is configured inside a provisioning script. If one or more scripts require a reboot it is suggested to leave this blank (since reboots may fail) and instead specify the final shutdown command in your last script.
shutdown_timeout (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The amount of time to wait after executing the shutdown_command for the virtual machine to actually shut down. If the machine doesn't shut down in this time it is considered an error. By default, the time out is "5m" (five minutes).

Boot Configuration

The boot configuration is very important: boot_command specifies the keys to type when the virtual machine is first booted in order to start the OS installer. This command is typed after boot_wait, which gives the virtual machine some time to actually load.

The boot_command is an array of strings. The strings are all typed in sequence. It is an array only to improve readability within the template.

There are a set of special keys available. If these are in your boot command, they will be replaced by the proper key:

<bs> - Backspace
<del> - Delete
<enter> <return> - Simulates an actual "enter" or "return" keypress.
<esc> - Simulates pressing the escape key.
<tab> - Simulates pressing the tab key.
<f1> - <f12> - Simulates pressing a function key.
<up> <down> <left> <right> - Simulates pressing an arrow key.
<spacebar> - Simulates pressing the spacebar.
<insert> - Simulates pressing the insert key.
<home> <end> - Simulates pressing the home and end keys.
<pageUp> <pageDown> - Simulates pressing the page up and page down keys.
<menu> - Simulates pressing the Menu key.
<leftAlt> <rightAlt> - Simulates pressing the alt key.
<leftCtrl> <rightCtrl> - Simulates pressing the ctrl key.
<leftShift> <rightShift> - Simulates pressing the shift key.
<leftSuper> <rightSuper> - Simulates pressing the ⌘ or Windows key.
<wait> <wait5> <wait10> - Adds a 1, 5 or 10 second pause before sending any additional keys. This is useful if you have to generally wait for the UI to update before typing more.
<waitXX> - Add an arbitrary pause before sending any additional keys. The format of XX is a sequence of positive decimal numbers, each with optional fraction and a unit suffix, such as 300ms, 1.5h or 2h45m. Valid time units are ns, us (or µs), ms, s, m, h. For example <wait10m> or <wait1m20s>.
<XXXOn> <XXXOff> - Any printable keyboard character, and of these "special" expressions, with the exception of the <wait> types, can also be toggled on or off. For example, to simulate ctrl+c, use <leftCtrlOn>c<leftCtrlOff>. Be sure to release them, otherwise they will be held down until the machine reboots. To hold the c key down, you would use <cOn>. Likewise, <cOff> to release.
{{ .HTTPIP }} {{ .HTTPPort }} - The IP and port, respectively of an HTTP server that is started serving the directory specified by the http_directory configuration parameter. If http_directory isn't specified, these will be blank!
{{ .Name }} - The name of the VM.

Example boot command. This is actually a working boot command used to start an CentOS 6.4 installer:

In JSON:

"boot_command": [

       "<tab><wait>",
       " ks=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/centos6-ks.cfg<enter>"
    ]

In HCL2:

boot_command = [

       "<tab><wait>",
       " ks=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/centos6-ks.cfg<enter>"
    ]

The example shown below is a working boot command used to start an Ubuntu 12.04 installer:

In JSON:

"boot_command": [

    "<esc><esc><enter><wait>",
    "/install/vmlinuz noapic ",
    "preseed/url=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/preseed.cfg ",
    "debian-installer=en_US auto locale=en_US kbd-chooser/method=us ",
    "hostname={{ .Name }} ",
    "fb=false debconf/frontend=noninteractive ",
    "keyboard-configuration/modelcode=SKIP keyboard-configuration/layout=USA ",
    "keyboard-configuration/variant=USA console-setup/ask_detect=false ",
    "initrd=/install/initrd.gz -- <enter>"

]

In HCL2:

boot_command = [

    "<esc><esc><enter><wait>",
    "/install/vmlinuz noapic ",
    "preseed/url=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/preseed.cfg ",
    "debian-installer=en_US auto locale=en_US kbd-chooser/method=us ",
    "hostname={{ .Name }} ",
    "fb=false debconf/frontend=noninteractive ",
    "keyboard-configuration/modelcode=SKIP keyboard-configuration/layout=USA ",
    "keyboard-configuration/variant=USA console-setup/ask_detect=false ",
    "initrd=/install/initrd.gz -- <enter>"

]

For more examples of various boot commands, see the sample projects from our community templates page.

The boot command "typed" character for character over a VNC connection to the machine, simulating a human actually typing the keyboard.

Keystrokes are typed as separate key up/down events over VNC with a default 100ms delay. The delay alleviates issues with latency and CPU contention. You can tune this delay on a per-builder basis by specifying "boot_key_interval" in your Packer template.

Note: for the HTTPIP to be resolved correctly, your VM's network configuration has to include a hostonly or nat type network interface. If you are using this feature, it is recommended to leave the default network configuration while you are building the VM, and use the vmx_data_post hook to modify the network configuration after the VM is done building.

Optional:

disable_vnc (bool) - Whether to create a VNC connection or not. A boot_command cannot be used when this is true. Defaults to false.
boot_key_interval (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - Time in ms to wait between each key press

boot_keygroup_interval (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - Time to wait after sending a group of key pressses. The value of this should be a duration. Examples are 5s and 1m30s which will cause Packer to wait five seconds and one minute 30 seconds, respectively. If this isn't specified, a sensible default value is picked depending on the builder type.
boot_wait (duration string | ex: "1h5m2s") - The time to wait after booting the initial virtual machine before typing the boot_command. The value of this should be a duration. Examples are 5s and 1m30s which will cause Packer to wait five seconds and one minute 30 seconds, respectively. If this isn't specified, the default is 10s or 10 seconds. To set boot_wait to 0s, use a negative number, such as "-1s"
boot_command ([]string) - This is an array of commands to type when the virtual machine is first booted. The goal of these commands should be to type just enough to initialize the operating system installer. Special keys can be typed as well, and are covered in the section below on the boot command. If this is not specified, it is assumed the installer will start itself.

For more examples of various boot commands, see the sample projects from our community templates page.

{
  "builders": [
    {
      "type": "vmware-vmx",
      "boot_key_interval": "10ms",
      ...
    }
  ]
}

Example boot command. This is actually a working boot command used to start an Ubuntu 12.04 installer:

[
  "<esc><esc><enter><wait>",
  "/install/vmlinuz noapic ",
  "preseed/url=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/preseed.cfg ",
  "debian-installer=en_US auto locale=en_US kbd-chooser/method=us ",
  "hostname={{ .Name }} ",
  "fb=false debconf/frontend=noninteractive ",
  "keyboard-configuration/modelcode=SKIP keyboard-configuration/layout=USA ",
  "keyboard-configuration/variant=USA console-setup/ask_detect=false ",
  "initrd=/install/initrd.gz -- <enter>"
]

For more examples of various boot commands, see the sample projects from our community templates page.

Building on a Remote vSphere Hypervisor

In addition to using the desktop products of VMware locally to build virtual machines, Packer can use a remote VMware Hypervisor to build the virtual machine.

Note: Packer supports ESXi 5.1 and above.

Before using a remote vSphere Hypervisor, you need to enable GuestIPHack by running the following command:

$ esxcli system settings advanced set -o /Net/GuestIPHack -i 1

When using a remote VMware Hypervisor, the builder still downloads the ISO and various files locally, and uploads these to the remote machine. Packer currently uses SSH to communicate to the ESXi machine rather than the vSphere API. If you want to use vSphere API, see the vsphere-iso builder.

Packer also requires VNC to issue boot commands during a build, which may be disabled on some remote VMware Hypervisors. Please consult the appropriate documentation on how to update VMware Hypervisor's firewall to allow these connections. VNC can be disabled by not setting a boot_command and setting disable_vnc to true.

Please note that you should disable vMotion for the host you intend to run Packer builds on; a vMotion event will cause the Packer build to fail.

To use a remote VMware vSphere Hypervisor to build your virtual machine, fill in the required remote_* configurations:

remote_type - This must be set to "esx5".
remote_host - The host of the remote machine.

Additionally, there are some optional configurations that you'll likely have to modify as well:

remote_port - The SSH port of the remote machine
remote_datastore - The path to the datastore where the VM will be stored on the ESXi machine.
remote_cache_datastore - The path to the datastore where supporting files will be stored during the build on the remote machine.
remote_cache_directory - The path where the ISO and/or floppy files will be stored during the build on the remote machine. The path is relative to the remote_cache_datastore on the remote machine.
remote_username - The SSH username used to access the remote machine.
remote_password - The SSH password for access to the remote machine.
remote_private_key_file - The SSH key for access to the remote machine.
format (string) - Either "ovf", "ova" or "vmx", this specifies the output format of the exported virtual machine. This defaults to "ovf". Before using this option, you need to install ovftool. This option currently only works when option remote_type is set to "esx5". Since ovftool is only capable of password based authentication remote_password must be set when exporting the VM.
vnc_disable_password - This must be set to "true" when using VNC with ESXi 6.5 or 6.7.