Windows Packer Templates

Simple Packer templates for creating Windows VMs that support mainstream use cases that can easily be forked and built upon.

This project makes use of reusable PowerShell modules which allow for others to easily create their own Packer templates without needing to fork a bunch of scripts. Packer templates tend to vary between people and companies but the scripts used by the templates don't vary as much. This is an attempt to separate out the reusable parts from the parts that don't.

Building a Box

1. Clone this repository
2. Install Packer 1.1.1 or newer
3. Execute Packer (see below)

The Windows10 template supports a plain vanilla Windows10 Vagrant box or a Windows10 Vagrant box with a bunch of .NET development tools.

Windows10 Vanilla Box

The plain vanilla build creates a Windows 10 box with Windows updates and not much else.

$ packer build windows10/packer.json

Windows10 .NET Developer Box

The .NET developer Vagrant box includes everything the vanilla box includes plus the following tools:

• Powershell Packagemanagement
• Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition
• Resharper 2017
• Notepad++
• Google Chrome
• Git for Windows
• Beyond Compare
• Fiddler 4
• SoapUI
• Sql Server Management Studio
• Node JS
• CloudFoundry CLI
• Nuget CLI

$ packer build -var devtools=true windows10/packer.json

Development

Local ISOs

You may want to use a Windows ISO already downloaded because you cleared your Packer cache or for other reasons. The simplest way to use an already existing ISO on your HDD is to serve it up via Python. From the directory where the ISO exists run: python -m SimpleHTTPServer. Then override the iso_url and iso_checksum variables by creating a variables.json file.

{
  "iso_url": "http://10.0.0.207:8000/en_windows_10_multi-edition_vl_version_1709_updated_dec_2017_x64_dvd_100406172.iso",
  "iso_checksum": "f38b0aeae0756e01dcd9b1600de62416e04aa963c72cea30929141f54f1235b3"
}

$ packer build -var-file windows10/variables.json windows10/packer.json

Local PowerShell Module Testing

You may want to test a WindowsBox PowerShell Modules change before committing and publishing it. The quickest way to do that is to make the necessary script changes and then provide the script to the guest VM through the a:\ drive. Mount the locally modified script by modifying the packer.json and add a floppy files entry, for example:

"floppy_files": [
  "../powershellmodules/modules/WindowsBox.WinRM/WindowsBox.WinRM.psm1",
  ...

Then you need to temporarily change how that module is loaded, from:

Install-Module WindowsBox.WinRM -Force

to

Import-Module -Name a:\WindowsBox.WinRM.psm1 -DisableNameChecking -Force

Thanks

This project would not be possible without a lot of work from other projects like Packer-Windows.

Project Values

• Modern OSs and tools
• Simplicity
• Reuse