Packer Created VMs Failing to Boot

olivierlambert

You are probably not using the right template in the first place

dan89

@olivierlambert That is always a possibility

I created the Windows and CentOS templates the same way by creating a base VM without installing the OS and then capturing that as a Template. I also tried copying the default pre-defined Windows Server 2022 template.

olivierlambert

@AtaxyaNetwork or @ddelnano might tell you how to select the right template

dan89

@olivierlambert - Figured it out for anyone else's future reference.

When setting platform_args you need to define all of them even if you only need to change one.

Since the defaults are

{
    "viridian": "false",
    "nx": "true",
    "pae": "true",
    "apic": "true",
    "timeoffset": "0",
    "acpi": "1",
    "cores-per-socket": "1"
}

I needed to include all of them even though I only needed "viridian": "true". Once I added in the other options the VM booted and the build worked.

AtaxyaNetwork

Hi @dan89 !

I'm not a windows expert, but I can do some testing.

Can you show us your pkr.hcl file ?

AtaxyaNetwork

We posted at the same time

@dan89 Glad you figured it out !

Maybe it can be documented in the packer repo. What do you think @ddelnano ?

mtcoffee

@dan89

Do you have a pkr.hcl for windows that you can share?

I am curious how your handling winrm and autounattend.xml?

fatek

@mtcoffee said in Packer Created VMs Failing to Boot:

Do you have a pkr.hcl for windows that you can share?

Follow up question: Do you have a pkr.hcl for windows that you can share?

mtcoffee

@fatek

After posting this I ended up building out a sample project and shared on github.
https://github.com/mtcoffee/xcp-ng-packer-examples

fatek

@mtcoffee talk about great timing?
About 25 minutes ago, I git cloned your repo!
Thanks.

fatek

@mtcoffee Any luck getting autounattend.xml - UEFI to work?

mtcoffee

@fatek

I noted that in the packer file. I was not able to get packers floppy_files working in uefi mode.

@ddelnano might have some insight?

fatek

Anyone know where the @ddelnano Discord channel is?

olivierlambert

https://discord.gg/Cp2CDhqd

fatek

@olivierlambert thank you

fatek

I would really love to get this working w XCP, no bios, I mean uefi only.
Packer was super easy to setup on ESXi + vCenter!

olivierlambert

Contributions are welcome, we are pretty busy here, and if we planned to have a fully dedicated "Devops" team, it will be in place in September. So please be patient, we do not have 5000 engineers

mtcoffee

@olivierlambert is spot on. Manage expectations. The best thing we can do is contribute helpful information.

Here is what I was able to deduce when this issue came up.

When creating a Windows VM in uefi mode and using the floppy_file option in packer:

There is a disk added as "fda"
However the fda device is not available as the a: drive or any other drive letter. When booted using bios mode, you can find the fda device by settting drive letter to "a:".

This is likely because uefi typically does not support floppy disks. I believe in VMWare when the floppy_file option was used in UEFI mode, it added the ISO as a DVD drive instead of an FDA.

Not sure if this is best solved at the Packer level or if it should be intercepted and corrected XCP-ng level?

fatek

I hear you regarding "managing expectations".

If Vates (as a company) is going to claim they offer VMware type/like value then Windows can not be a 2nd class citizen in your ecosystem!

fatek

@mtcoffee It seems like getting Packer involved would be the way to go but I have zero idea on what is involved.

Looking at vSphere ISO docs, there is the option to create cdrom configs and also another option to use cd_files (list of files to place on to a CD that is attached when the VM is booted).

I don't see that option in the XenServer-iso docs.