Create and Use a Virtual Machine Template in Proxmox with Packer and Terraform

Ingredients

References

• Packer: Input Variables and local variables
• Cloud-Init: Data Sources - NoCloud
• phoenixNAP: How to Install Kubernetes on Ubuntu 22.04
• Terraform: Cloud Init Guide

Software Versions

Software	Version
Proxmox Virtual Environment	8.2.2
Proxmmox Packer Plugin	1
Proxmox Terraform Provider	3.0.1-rc1

Recipe

Step 1. Install Proxmox.

Step 2. Login to your Proxmox server.

Step 3. Upload a copy of the latest Ubuntu image (e.g., ubuntu-22.04.4-live-server-amd64.iso) to your Proxmox server.

Step 4. Create an API token for the root user (uncheck the "Privilege Separation" box).

Step 5. Determine the IP address of your WSL environment and Windows host. For example, my eth0 in my WSL environment currently has an IP address of 172.19.27.181. My Windows host has an IP address of 192.168.1.211.

Step 6. Open an elevated Command Prompt and enter the command below. Make sure to (1) replace 192.168.1.211 with the IP address of your Windows host and (2) replace 172.19.27.181 with the IP address of your WSL environment. Do not close the elevated Command Prompt yet.

netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=8336 listenaddress=192.168.1.211 connectport=8336 connectaddress=172.19.27.181

Step 7. With the elevated Command Prompt still open, enter the command below. As before, make sure to (1) replace 192.168.1.211 with the IP address of your Windows host and (2) replace 172.19.27.181 with the IP address of your WSL environment. You can close the elevated Command Prompt now.

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Packer" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=8336

Step 8. Open a Terminal to your WSL environment and enter the command below to clone this repository.

git clone https://github.com/cyberphor/devsecops-cookbook.git

Step 9. Change directories to this specific recipe.

cd recipe-14/

Step 10. Change directories to the cloud-init folder.

cd cloud-init/

Step 11. Enter the command below to invoke a Python-based web server.

python -m http.server 8336

Step 12. Change directories to the packer folder.

cd packer/

Step 13. Create a file and name it values.auto.pkvars.hcl. Then, add values similar to below.

pve_api_url             = "https://192.168.1.175:8006/api2/json"
pve_api_token_id        = "root@pam!packer"
pve_api_token_secret    = "ced71a2c-8443-4a4c-b952-f3ee872c1234"
pve_target_node_name    = "hypervisor-01"
iso_file                = "local:iso/ubuntu-22.04.4-live-server-amd64.iso"
vm_id                   = "100"
vm_template_name        = "ubuntu-server-22.04"
vm_template_description = "Ubuntu Server 22.04"
vm_admin_username       = "packer" 
vm_admin_password       = "packer" 

Step 14. Initialize the packer directory for Packer-use.

packer init .

Step 15. Validate your Packer configuration.

packer validate .

You should get output similar to below.

The configuration is valid.

Step 16. Run the command below.

packer build .

Step 17. Change directories to the terraform folder.

cd ../terraform/

Step 18. Create a file and name it values.auto.tfvars. Then, add values similar to below.

pve_api_url          = "https://192.168.1.175:8006/api2/json"
pve_api_token_id     = "root@pam!packer"
pve_api_token_secret = "ced71a2c-8443-4a4c-b952-f3ee872c1234"
pve_target_node_name = "hypervisor-01"
vm_id                = "100"
vm_template_name     = "ubuntu-server-22.04"
vm_name              = "ubuntu-server-22.04"

Step 19. Initialize the terraform directory.

terraform init .

Step 20. Run the command below.

terraform apply