- #Build custom windows 10 image vmware how to
- #Build custom windows 10 image vmware install
- #Build custom windows 10 image vmware windows 10
- #Build custom windows 10 image vmware software
We are going to start from scratch and build a VM from a Windows Server 2016 ISO. There are two ways we can build a template from, an OS ISO or an existing VM. Now we are ready to start building a VMware template. Packer will then automatically find the plugin:
#Build custom windows 10 image vmware install
This will download the plugin that we will need, there are several ways to install the plugin, but for simplicity of this demo, we will store the plugin next to the Packer.exe file. So in this example, we will install the Vsphere-ISO plugin by running the following PowerShell syntax while in the same directory as our Packer.exe: Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "" -OutFile packer-builder-vsphere-iso.exe -UseBasicParsing There is a custom builder available called VSphere-ISO by JetBrains that allows us to use the VCenter API’s to connect to our VMware environment and simply start provisioning templates.
#Build custom windows 10 image vmware software
Luckily, Packer is open-source software and has an amazing community that is always improving upon the product. This also requires custom configurations that need to be made on the host in order to interface with packer. There are many builders that come natively with Packer, however, currently the default VMware builders allow you to only use SSH to connect to a single host in order to provide the template. Packer uses “builders” to provides ways to generate images for the various platforms out there today like Azure, VMware, and AWS. After typing in the command “Packer” we can see that the executable is called: Now close out of all open shells and start a new one. In my example I have my Packer.exe in the C:\Packer directory: setx PATH "$env:path C:\Packer" -m Open up an administrative command prompt and type in the following syntax pointing to the directory where the Packer.exe file is located. In order to allow us to open up a command prompt and start using packer no matter what directory we currently in, we will need to configure the OS with the proper environment variables.
#Build custom windows 10 image vmware windows 10
In our example, we will be running Packer from a Windows 10 machine. Packer is just a single executable file that can be placed in any folder and executed from there.