Packer Plugin for VMware Desktop Hypervisors

The Packer Plugin for VMware Desktop Hypervisors is a plugin for creating virtual machine images for use with VMware desktop hypervisors, VMware Fusion Pro and VMware Workstation Pro.

The plugin includes two builders for creating virtual machine images, depending on your desired strategy:

• vmware-iso - This builder creates a virtual machine, installs a guest operating system from an ISO, provisions software within the guest operating system, and then exports the virtual machine as an image. Use this builder to start by creating a new image.

• vmware-vmx - This builder imports an existing virtual machine, runs provisioners on the virtual machine, and then exports the virtual machine as an image. Use this builder to start from an existing image as the source.

Supported Hypervisors

This plugin supports the following desktop hypervisors.

• VMware Fusion Pro 13 (13.6.0 and later) for macOS
• VMware Workstation Pro 17 (17.6.0 and later) for Linux and Windows

Tip

Refer to the product documentation of the supported desktop hypervisors for system requirements.

Tip

To use the export functionality of the plugin, you must install VMware OVF Tool 4.6.0 or later.

Important

The plugin no longer supports VMware ESX as of version v2.0.0.

For VMware ESX support, please use the Packer plugin for VMware vSphere.

Requirements

Go:

• Go 1.24.13

  Required if building the plugin.

Installation

Using the Releases

Automatic Installation

Include the following in your configuration to automatically install the plugin when you run packer init.

packer {
  required_version = ">= 1.7.0"
  required_plugins {
    vmware = {
      version = ">= 1.2.0"
      source  = "github.com/vmware/vmware"
    }
  }
}

For more information, please refer to the Packer documentation.

Manual Installation

You can install the plugin using the packer plugins install command.

Examples:

1. Install the latest version of the plugin:

   packer plugins install github.com/vmware/vmware

2. Install a specific version of the plugin:

   packer plugins install github.com/vmware/vmware@v1.2.0

Using the Source

You can build from source by cloning the GitHub repository and running make build from the repository root. After a successful build, the packer-plugin-vmware binary is created in the root directory.

To install the compiled plugin, please refer to the Packer documentation.

Documentation

• Please refer to the plugin documentation for more information on the plugin usage.

• Please refer to the repository example directory for usage examples.

Contributing

Please read the code of conduct and contribution guidelines to get started.

Support

The Packer Plugin for VMware Desktop Hypervisors is supported by the maintainers and the plugin community.

License

© Broadcom. All Rights Reserved.
The term "Broadcom" refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.
Licensed under the Mozilla Public License, version 2.0.