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

• reregister_vm (boolean) - Use the method of unregister VM and reregister as a template, rather than using the markAsTemplate method in vmWare. NOTE: If you are getting permission denied errors when trying to mark as a template, but it works fine in the vSphere UI, try setting this to false. Default 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.