proxmox-packer
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Packer files for building CentOS 7, 8, Rocky Linux 8, 9 and Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04 images for Proxmox
CentOS/Rocky/Ubuntu Packer Builder for Proxmox
This project provides Packer files to build a basic image of either CentOS 7 or CentOS 8 for use on a Proxmox system. Use it as is or as a starting point for a more fully customized image.
This has been tested on Proxmox 7.x and 8.x.
Getting started
To use this you will need:
- This repo
git clone https://github.com/dustinrue/proxmox-packer.git
- ISO files for the OS you want to build an image for uploaded to Proxmox:
- A working Proxmox system
- Packer. This project is tested with Packer version 1.9.2
- The builder machine must be accessible to Proxmox or you must host the ks.cfg or inst.ks files somewhere publicly accessible and modify the packer.pkr.hcl file for the version you wish to build.
The OS ISO file will need to be uploaded to your Proxmox system.
The simplest way to get the ISO file on your Proxmox system is to use the "Download from URL" option on the disk/share that you configured for ISO files.
Building an Image
You will first want to determine if your host running Packer can be accessed by the Proxmox host. This is because Packer will briefly run an http server so that the installer can download the kickstart file. If Proxmox is on the same network as your builder host and there are no other firewall restrictions on your builder host this should work fine. If not, you will need to copy/host the ks.cfg files on a publicly accessible server.
Next, you will need to know the URL to your Proxmox system, the name of the node to build on as well as a username and password of a user with sufficient privileges to create VMs and templates. If you have customized your install or are using a storage pool other than the default you will need to specify that as well.
With all of the information at hand, edit the variables.pkrvars.hcl file and update the variables. For a full set of variables you can override look at any packer.pkr.hcl file for a list of variables.
In addition to using the packer.pkr.hcl file you can also set some variables using environment variables. For example, I set my Proxmox password using the following variable:
PROXMOX_PASSWORD=<scrubbed>
Using the Makefile
You can build the following templates by running:
- make centos7
- make centos8
- make rocky8
- make rocky9
- make ubuntu2004
- make ubuntu2204
Building manually
If you do not want to use the Makefile then the following commands will work:
CentOS 7
packer build -var-file variables.pkrvars.hcl centos7/packer.pkr.hcl
CentOS 8
packer build -var-file variables.pkrvars.hcl centos8/packer.pkr.hcl
Rocky Linux 8
packer build -var-file variables.pkrvars.hcl rocky8/packer.pkr.hcl
Rocky Linux 9
packer build -var-file variables.pkrvars.hcl rocky9/packer.pkr.hcl
Ubuntu 20.04
packer build -var-file variables.pkrvars.hcl ubuntu2004/packer.pkr.hcl
Ubuntu 22.04
packer build -var-file variables.pkrvars.hcl ubuntu2204/packer.pkr.hcl
Note that RL9 now requires at least an Intel Nehalem processor or equivalent. You can read more at https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RHEL-9-x86-64-v2-Plans
There are a number of other variables you can set. You will notice these closely match the available options for the Proxmox builder. The full list of variables you can customize is:
-
proxmox_username
- username to log into Proxmox as -
proxmox_password
- password to log into Proxmox as -
proxmox_url
- URL of your Proxmox system -
proxmox_node
- name of the Proxmox node to build on -
proxmox_storage_pool
- name of the storage pool the image should be built on -
proxmox_storage_pool_type
- type of storage pool,lvm-thin
(default),lvm
,zfspool
ordirectory
-
proxmox_storage_format
- storage format,raw
(default),cow
,qcow
,qed
,qcow2
,vmdk
orcloop
-
centos_image
orubuntu_image
- The OS image. -
template_name
- Name of the template. Defaults toCentOS7-Template
orCentOS8-Template
depending on version -
template_description
- Template description. Defaults toCentOS 7 Template
orCentOS 8 Template
depending on image being built.
After the image is built
Once the image is built you will want to adjust any remaining settings in the template including creating a cloud-init drive. A cloud-init drive must be created for you to ssh into any new VMs you create. For details on how to do so visit https://blog.dustinrue.com/proxmox-cloud-init/.