packer-cn/website/source/docs/post-processors/vsphere-template.html.md

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The Packer vSphere Template post-processor takes an artifact from the VMware-iso builder, built on ESXi (i.e. remote) or an artifact from the vSphere post-processor and allows to mark a VM as a template and leaving it in a path of choice.	docs	vSphere Template - Post-Processors	docs-post-processors-vSphere-template

vSphere Template Post-Processor

Type: vsphere-template

The Packer vSphere Template post-processor takes an artifact from the VMware-iso builder, built on ESXi (i.e. remote) or an artifact from the vSphere post-processor and allows to mark a VM as a template and leaving it in a path of choice.

Example

An example is shown below, showing only the post-processor configuration:

{
   "type": "vsphere-template",
   "host": "vcenter.local",
   "insecure": true,
   "username": "root",
   "password": "secret",
   "datacenter": "mydatacenter",
   "folder": "/packer-templates/os/distro-7"
}

Configuration

There are many configuration options available for the post-processor. They are segmented below into two categories: required and optional parameters. Within each category, the available configuration keys are alphabetized.

Required:

• host (string) - The vSphere host that contains the VM built by the vmware-iso.

• password (string) - Password to use to authenticate to the vSphere endpoint.

• username (string) - The username to use to authenticate to the vSphere endpoint.

Optional:

• datacenter (string) - If you have more than one, you will need to specify which one the ESXi used.

• folder (string) - Target path where the template will be created.

• insecure (boolean) - If it's true skip verification of server certificate. Default is false

• keep_input_artifact (boolean) - Unlike most post-processors, this option has no effect for vsphere-template. This is because in order for a template to work, you can't delete the vm that you generate the template from. The vsphere template post-processor will therefore always preserve the original vm.

• snapshot_enable (boolean) - Create a snapshot before marking as a template. Default is false

• snapshot_name (string) - Name for the snapshot. Required when snapshot_enable is true

• snapshot_description (string) - Description for the snapshot. Required when snapshot_enable is true

Using the vSphere Template with local builders

Once the vSphere takes an artifact from the VMware builder and uploads it to a vSphere endpoint, you will likely want to mark that VM as template. Packer can do this for you automatically using a sequence definition (a collection of post-processors that are treated as as single pipeline, see Post-Processors for more information):

{
  "post-processors": [
    [
      {
        "type": "vsphere",
         ...
      },
      {
        "type": "vsphere-template",
         ...
      }
    ],
    {
      "type": "...",
      ...
    }
  ]
}

In the example above, the result of each builder is passed through the defined sequence of post-processors starting with the vsphere post-processor which will upload the artifact to a vSphere endpoint. The resulting artifact is then passed on to the vsphere-template post-processor which handles marking a VM as a template. Note that the vsphere and vsphere-template post-processors are paired together in their own JSON array.