📖 README

This repo helps build virtual machines using Hashicorp Packer on VMware Fusion Player.

• Build VMs on a simple network with just DHCP and DNS
• Doesn't use TFTP server for netbooting
• Doesn't use a separate HTTP server
• Build VMs in parallel

Requirements

• VMware Fusion Player 13 or higher.
• A MacOS control machine with hashicorp/packer binaries.
• MacOS host machine using M1, M2 or M3 processor.

Supported VM Builds

status	arch	os	version	machine specs
👍	arm64	debian	bookworm	2 vCPU, 2 GiB vRAM, 40 GiB vDisk

🌱 Getting started

1. Create an overrides.pkrvars.hcl file. See example below.
2. Run the builder.sh script. Provide virtual machine name as argument.

⚙️ Example overrides.pkrvars.hcl file

The overrides.pkrvars.hcl file is not tracked by git, it is used to override default values in the packer_template.pkr.hcl variables.

# VM config
vm_cpus        = 2
vm_memory      = 2048
vm_disk_size   = 40960
vm_datastore   = "/VirtualMachines"
vm_username    = "debian"
vm_password    = "debian"
ssh_public_key = "ssh-ed25519 ..."

👏 Appendix

description	link
hashicorp/packer releases	https://github.com/hashicorp/packer/releases
vmware-iso builder	https://developer.hashicorp.com/packer/integrations/hashicorp/vmware/latest/components/builder/iso