Packer configuration for Ubuntu 20.04 on vSphere with cloud-init and guestinfo

preseed.cfg

d-i passwd/user-fullname string packerbuilt
d-i passwd/username string packerbuilt
d-i passwd/user-password password PackerBuilt!
d-i passwd/user-password-again password PackerBuilt!
d-i user-setup/allow-password-weak boolean true

d-i partman-auto/disk string /dev/sda
d-i partman-auto/method string regular
d-i partman-basicfilesystems/no_swap boolean false
d-i partman-swapfile/size string 0
d-i partman-auto/expert_recipe string root :: 1000 50 -1 ext4 \
     $primary{ } $bootable{ } method{ format } \
     format{ } use_filesystem{ } filesystem{ ext4 } \
     mountpoint{ / } \
     .
d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe select root
d-i partman/choose_partition select Finish partitioning and write changes to disk
d-i partman/confirm boolean true
d-i partman/confirm_write_new_label boolean true
d-i partman/choose_partition select finish
d-i partman/confirm boolean true
d-i partman/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true

d-i passwd/root-login boolean true
d-i passwd/root-password password PackerBuilt!
d-i passwd/root-password-again password PackerBuilt!

d-i pkgsel/include string open-vm-tools openssh-server perl perl-modules-5.30 \
    cloud-guest-utils curl cloud-init python3-pip

d-i grub-installer/only_debian boolean true

d-i preseed/late_command string \
    echo 'packerbuilt ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL' > /target/etc/sudoers.d/packerbuilt ; \
    in-target chmod 440 /etc/sudoers.d/packerbuilt ;

d-i finish-install/reboot_in_progress note

script.sh

# Apply any updates
#
apt-get update ; apt-get -y dist-upgrade

# Disable swap - recommended for Kubernetes
#
swapoff -a
sed -i '/ swap / s/^\(.*\)$/#\1/g' /etc/fstab

# Add cloud-init-vmware-guestinfo
#
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vmware/cloud-init-vmware-guestinfo/master/install.sh | sh -

# Enable guest customisation with cloud-init (https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/59557)
#
echo 'disable_vmware_customization: false' >> /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg

# Reset any existing cloud-init state
#
cloud-init clean -s -l

# Cleanup
#
apt-get -y autoremove
apt-get -y clean
truncate -s 0 /etc/machine-id
rm /var/lib/dbus/machine-id
ln -s /etc/machine-id /var/lib/dbus/machine-id

ubuntu-20.04.json

{
  "builders": [
    {
      "CPUs": 2,
      "RAM": 2048,
      "RAM_reserve_all": true,
      "boot_command": [
        "<enter><wait><f6><wait><esc><wait>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs><bs>",
        "<bs><bs><bs>",
        "/install/vmlinuz",
        " initrd=/install/initrd.gz",
        " priority=critical",
        " locale=en_US",
        " file=/media/preseed.cfg",
        "<enter>"
      ],
      "boot_order": "disk,cdrom",
      "cluster": "{{user `cluster`}}",
      "convert_to_template": "true",
      "datastore": "{{user `datastore`}}",
      "disk_controller_type": "pvscsi",
      "floppy_files": [
        "./preseed.cfg"
      ],
      "folder": "{{user `folder`}}",
      "guest_os_type": "ubuntu64Guest",
      "host": "{{user `host`}}",
      "insecure_connection": "true",
      "iso_checksum": "MD5:9d2b54506f8f9fdad6b72e45aff0f0de",
      "iso_urls": "http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-legacy-server/releases/20.04/release/ubuntu-20.04-legacy-server-amd64.iso",
      "network_adapters": [
        {
          "network": "{{user `network`}}",
          "network_card": "vmxnet3"
        }
      ],
      "password": "{{user `password`}}",
      "ssh_password": "{{user `ssh_password`}}",
      "ssh_username": "{{user `ssh_username`}}",
      "storage": [
        {
          "disk_size": 8192,
          "disk_thin_provisioned": true
        }
      ],
      "type": "vsphere-iso",
      "username": "{{user `username`}}",
      "vcenter_server": "{{user `vcenter_server`}}",
      "vm_name": "{{ user `template_name`}}"
    }
  ],
  "provisioners": [
    {
      "execute_command": "echo '{{user `ssh_password`}}' | sudo -S -E bash '{{.Path}}'",
      "scripts": [
        "script.sh"
      ],
      "type": "shell"
    }
  ]
}

variables.json.example

{
    "vcenter_server":"",
    "username":"[email protected]",
    "password":"",
    "datastore":"",
    "folder": "",
    "host":"",
    "cluster": "",
    "network": "",
    "ssh_username": "packerbuilt",
    "ssh_password": "PackerBuilt!",
    "template_name": "ubuntu_2004_cloudinit"
}