Windows Packer Templates

• Introduction
  • Supported Builders
  • Supported Operating Systems
  • Pre-build Images
• Prepare your system to run Packer
  • Ubuntu
  • Windows
• Running the Build Script
  • Building Vagrant Cloud Images
  • Building Hyper-V Images
  • Building VirtualBox Images
• Using the Vagrant Images

Introduction

This repository contains build scripts to golden images using Packer.

Interested in some best practices when using Packer with Windows? Check out my blog post on the topic.

Supported Builders

The supported builds are:

• VirtualBox
• Hyper-V

Supported Operating Systems

The build.supported_os.yaml file contains the list of Operating Systems that are supported and their settings.

The supported Operating Systems to build are:

• Windows2012R2Core
• Windows2012R2
• Windows2016StdCore
• Windows2016Std

Pre-build Images

If you just want to download the pre-build Vagrant images, download them from Vagrant Cloud.

Prepare your system to run Packer

Before you can run the build scripts, you need to prepare your system.

Ubuntu

✅ Tested on Ubuntu 16.04

Mono is required to run the build script.

# Install Mono
sudo apt-get install mono-complete -y

# Give the script execute permission
chmod +x build.sh

Additionally you will need to install:

• Packer
• VirtualBox

Windows

✅ Tested on Windows 10 Pro

# Set PowerShell Execution Policy
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Force

# Install Chocolatey
iwr https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1 -UseBasicParsing | iex

# Install Packer
choco install packer -y

# Install Hyper-V
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All

# Create an external Hyper-V Switch
# Commands may vary depending on your system.
Get-NetAdapter

# Find the name of the network adapter (make sure its status is also not disconnected)

# Create a new VM Switch using the name of the network adapter
New-VMSwitch -Name "External VM Switch" -AllowManagementOS $true -NetAdapterName "<Your Adapter Name Here>"

Running the Build Script

Depending on your platform, you either need to run:

• build.ps1 on Windows
• build.sh on Linux / MacOS.

Building Vagrant Cloud Images

If you are building images for Vagrant Cloud, you need to set the following environment variables:

# Windows

$env:ATLAS_TOKEN = "ABC123XYZ"

$env:ATLAS_USERNAME = "MattHodge" # Username to upload the boxes under

$env:ATLAS_VERSION = "1.0.1" # Version of the box being uploaded

# MacOS / Linux

export ATLAS_TOKEN="ABC123XYZ"

export ATLAS_USERNAME="MattHodge" # Username to upload the boxes under

export ATLAS_VERSION="1.0.1" # Version of the box being uploaded

Building Hyper-V Images

The following commands will build you Hyper-V Images

# Builds Windows 2016 Standard Core and runs the Vagrant post processor (local).
.\build.ps1 -Target "hyperv-local" -os="Windows2016StdCore"

# Builds Windows 2012 R2 Core and runs the Atlas post processor.
.\build.ps1 -Target "hyperv-vagrant-cloud" --os="Win2012R2Core"

Building VirtualBox Images

The following commands will build you VirtualBox Images

# Builds Windows 2016 Standard Core and runs the Vagrant post processor (local).
./build.sh --target "virtualbox-local" -os="Windows2016StdCore"

# Builds Windows 2012 R2 Core and runs the Atlas post processor.
./build.sh --target "virtualbox-vagrant-cloud" -os="Win2012R2Core"

Using the Vagrant Images

If you aren't pushing your boxes to Atlas, you can import the *.box files for use in Vagrant:

vagrant box add .\win2016stdcore-wmf5-nocm-hyperv.box --name Windows2016StdCore

You can also find all the boxes ready to be used with vagrant up over at my VagrantBoxes Repository.