Packer Builds Field Notes

A Packer template build can fail in three different places that look similar from the outside: Packer never reaches SSH, so file and shell provisioners never run. Packer places bootstrap files into the template, but does not execute runtime bootstrap. Terraform/cloud-init clones the VM but does not start the bootstrap entrypoint correctly. Do not diagnose all three as “bootstrap did not work.” Ask which layer failed. Placement Is Packer’s Job For a reusable vSphere template, Packer should place static resources only: ...

Terraform can successfully ask vSphere to clone a VM and still fail during guest customization. In that case, the problem is usually inside the guest/template, not Terraform syntax. Symptom Terraform reports an error like: Virtual machine customization failed An error occurred while customizing VM ... For details reference the log file /var/log/vmware-imc/toolsDeployPkg.log in the guest OS. Terraform may leave the VM in place to help troubleshooting. First Checks From the VM console or SSH if available: ...

Terraform can inject cloud-init data into vSphere clones through VMware guestinfo keys. That only works if the template is built to let cloud-init run on first boot. Symptom Terraform creates or replaces the VM, but the expected userdata.yaml behavior does not happen. Bootstrap does not run, SSH is not configured, or /var/log/platform-bootstrap.log is missing. Check Guestinfo From vSphere Use govc to inspect the VM extra config: source govc.env govc vm.info -e /DC-Site-A/vm/K8s-Cluster/OpsTools/cluster-a-api-lb-01 \ | grep 'guestinfo\|disk.enableUUID' Look for keys like: ...