Add vsphere-iso Packer builder support

[Phat3]

Hi!

I added the support for creating images on vSphere environments using Packer.

The existing build chain for ESXi uses the vmware-iso Packer builder which is not fully compatible with vCenter. Specifically, I encountered the following bugs while deploying:

• The builder is not able to use virtual switches directly created by vCenter, but instead it creates new ones with the same name on the ESXi host, resulting in no network connectivity during build time
• The guest additions (VMware tools) are not automatically installed when creating Windows images. This prevents Packer to retrieve the IP address of the VM since it does not get exposed through APIs without having the VMware tools installed, and therefore it prevents Packer to connect to the VM and execute additional commands after the boot phase.

To solve those issues I ported the Packer build configuration to the Packer builder vsphere-iso which is fully compatible with vCenter (Tested on the latest version of vCenter).

This PR contains the following new files:

• ESXi/Packer/ubuntu2004_vsphere.json: vsphere-iso Packer config file for Ubuntu 20.04
• ESXi/Packer/windows_10_vsphere.json: vsphere-iso Packer config file for Windows 10
• ESXi/Packer/windows_10_vsphere.json: vsphere-iso Packer config file for Windows Server 2016
• ESXi/Packer/variables_vsphere.json: variables used by the new config
• Packer/answer_files/10_vsphere/Autounattend.xml: a modified version of the Autounaddend.xml that launches a script to install the VMware tools at boot time when a new Windows 10 image is created
• Packer/answer_files/2016_vsphere/Autounattend.xml: a modified version of the Autounaddend.xml that launches a script to install the VMware tools at boot time when a new Windows Server 2016 image is created
• Packer/scripts/vmtools.cmd: script that installs the VMware tools and launched by the Autounattend.xml files

The command that needs to be used to run Packer is the same as the one used when building the images for ESXi but changing the paths to the new configuration files (e.g., PACKER_CACHE_DIR=../../Packer/packer_cache packer build -var-file variables_vsphere.json ubuntu2004_vsphere.json)

Signed-off-by: Sebastiano Mariani smariani@vmware.com

[Phat3]

Hi @clong!

I had to add the 2 additional answer files because when deploying a Windows VM on vCenter the VMware Tools are not installed by default. Without VMware tools installed, the IP address of the VM is not correctly exposed through the APIs, and therefore Packet won't be able to get the IP and connect back to that VM and execute post-installation scripts.

In the 2 new answer files, I added the part to automatically install those tools. Specifically, those files are identical to DetectionLab//Packer/answer_files/10 and DetectionLab//Packer/answer_files/2016 respectively, except for the following part:

        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Deployment" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <RunSynchronous>
                <RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
                    <Order>1</Order>
                    <!-- Install VMware Tools from windows.iso -->
                    <Path>a:\vmtools.cmd</Path>
                    <WillReboot>Always</WillReboot>
                </RunSynchronousCommand>
            </RunSynchronous>
        </component>

This part executes a custom script I wrote to install the VMware tools (which is mounted at boot time as a floppy_file in the Packer config)

[clong]

Makes sense -- PR looks good, thank you!

[clong]

Makes sense -- PR looks good, thank you!