Terraform Provider

• Website: https://www.terraform.io
• 
• Mailing list: Google Groups

Requirements

• Terraform 0.10.1+
• Go 1.11+ (to build the provider plugin)
• ovftool from VMware. NOTE: ovftool installer for windows doesn't put ovftool.exe in your path. You will need to manually set your path.
• You MUST enable ssh access on your ESXi hypervisor.

• Google 'How to enable ssh access on esxi'

• In general, you should know how to use terraform, esxi and some networking...

• You will most likely need a DHCP server on your primary network if you are deploying VMs with public OVF/OVA/VMX images. (Sources that have unconfigured primary interfaces.)

• The source OVF/OVA/VMX images must have open-vm-tools or vmware-tools installed to properly import an IPaddress. (you need this to run provisioners)

Building The Provider

You first must set your GOPATH. If you are unsure, please review the documentation at.

https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/SettingGOPATH

Clone repository to: $GOPATH/src/github.com/terraform-providers/terraform-provider-esxi

mkdir $HOME/go
export GOPATH="$HOME/go"

go get -u -v golang.org/x/crypto/ssh
go get -u -v github.com/hashicorp/terraform
go get -u -v github.com/josenk/terraform-provider-esxi

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/josenk/terraform-provider-esxi
CGO_ENABLED=0 GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -a -ldflags '-w -extldflags "-static"' -o terraform-provider-esxi_`cat version`

sudo cp terraform-provider-esxi_`cat version` /usr/local/bin

Terraform-provider-esxi plugin

• This is a Terraform plugin that adds a VMware ESXi provider support. This allows Terraform to control and provision VMs directly on an ESXi hypervisor without a need for vCenter or VShpere. ESXi hypervisor is a free download from VMware!

https://www.vmware.com/go/get-free-esxi

• If you don't know terraform, I highly recommend you read through the introduction on the hashicorp website.

https://www.terraform.io/intro/getting-started/install.html

• VMware Configuration Maximums tool.

https://configmax.vmware.com/guest

What's New:

• Terraform can import existing Guest VMs, Virtual Disks & Resource pools by name. See wiki page for more info.

https://github.com/josenk/terraform-provider-esxi/wiki/How-to-import

• Added support for GuestInfo. (Thanks for the contribution silasb.)
  • This adds great provisioning options like Ignition and Cloud-Init!

Features and Compatibility

• Source image can be a clone of a VM or local vmx, ovf, ova file. This provider uses ovftool, so there should be a wide compatibility.
• Supports adding your VM to Resource Pools to partition CPU and memory usage from other VMs on your ESXi host.
• Terraform will Create, Destroy, Update & Read Resource Pools.
• Terraform will Create, Destroy, Update & Read Guest VMs.
• Terraform will Create, Destroy, Update & Read Extra Storage for Guests.

This is a provider! NOT a provisioner.

• This plugin does not configure your guest VM, it creates it.
• To configure your guest VM after it's built, you need to use a provisioner.
  • Refer to Hashicorp list of provisioners: https://www.terraform.io/docs/provisioners/index.html
• To help you get started, there is are examples in a separate repo I created. You can create a Pull Request if you would like to contribute.
  • https://github.com/josenk/terraform-provider-esxi-wiki

Vagrant vs Terraform.

If you are using vagrant as a deployment tool (infa as code), you may want to consider a better tool. Terraform. Vagrant is better for development environments, while Terraform is better at managing infrastructure. Please give my terraform plugin a try and give me some feedback. What you're trying to do, what's missing, what works, what doesn't work, etc...

https://www.vagrantup.com/intro/vs/terraform.html https://github.com/josenk/terraform-provider-esxi https://github.com/josenk/vagrant-vmware-esxi

Why this plugin?

Not everyone has vCenter, vSphere, expensive APIs... These cost $$$. ESXi is free!

How to install

Download and install Terraform on your local system using instructions from https://www.terraform.io/downloads.html. Clone this plugin from github, build and place a copy of it in your path or current directory of your terraform project. Or download pre-built binaries from https://github.com/josenk/terraform-provider-esxi/releases.

How to use and configure a main.tf file

1. cd SOMEDIR
2. vi main.tf # Use the contents of this example main.tf as a template. Specify provider parameters to access your ESXi host. Modify the resources for resource pools and guest vm.

terraform {
  required_version = ">= 0.12"
}

provider "esxi" {
  esxi_hostname      = "esxi"
  esxi_hostport      = "22"
  esxi_hostssl       = "443"
  esxi_username      = "root"
  esxi_password      = "MyPassword"
}

resource "esxi_guest" "vmtest" {
  guest_name         = "vmtest"
  disk_store         = "MyDiskStore"

  #
  #  Specify an existing guest to clone, an ovf source, or neither to build a bare-metal guest vm.
  #
  #clone_from_vm      = "Templates/centos7"
  #ovf_source        = "/local_path/centos-7.vmx"

  network_interfaces {
    virtual_network = "VM Network"
  }
}

Basic usage

3. terraform init
4. terraform plan
5. terraform apply
6. terraform show
7. terraform destroy

Configuration reference

• provider "esxi"

  • esxi_hostname - Required
  • esxi_hostport - Optional - Default "22".
  • esxi_hostssl - Optional - Default "443".
  • esxi_username - Optional - Default "root".
  • esxi_password - Required

• resource "esxi_resource_pool"

  • resource_pool_name - Required - The Resource Pool name.
  • cpu_min - Optional
  • cpu_min_expandable - Optional
  • cpu_max - Optional
  • cpu_shares - Optional
  • mem_min - Optional
  • mem_min_expandable - Optional
  • mem_max - Optional
  • mem_shares - Optional

• resource "esxi_virtual_disk"

  • virtual_disk_disk_store - Required - esxi Disk Store where virtual disk will be created.
  • virtual_disk_dir - Required - A subdirectory to contain the virtual disk. (Can be the same as guest_name)
  • virtual_disk_name - Optional - Virtual Disk Name. (ext must be .vmdk)
  • virtual_disk_size - Optional - Virtual Disk size in GB. Default 1GB.
  • virtual_disk_type - Optional - Virtual Disk type. (thin, zeroedthick or eagerzeroedthick) Default 'thin'.

• resource "esxi_guest"

  • guest_name - Required - The Guest name.
  • ip_address - Computed - The IP address reported by VMware tools.
  • boot_disk_type - Optional - Guest boot disk type. Default 'thin'. Available thin, zeroedthick, eagerzeroedthick.
  • boot_disk_size - Optional - Specify boot disk size or grow cloned vm to this size.
  • guestos - Optional - Default will be taken from cloned source.
  • clone_from_vm - Source vm to clone. Mutually exclusive with ovf_source option.
  • ovf_source - ovf files or URLs to use as a source. Mutually exclusive with clone_from_vm option.
  • disk_store - Required - esxi Disk Store where guest vm will be created.
  • resource_pool_name - Optional - Any existing or terraform managed resource pool name. - Default "/".
  • memsize - Optional - Memory size in MB. (ie, 1024 == 1GB). See esxi documentation for limits. - Default 512 or default taken from cloned source.
  • numvcpus - Optional - Number of virtual cpus. See esxi documentation for limits. - Default 1 or default taken from cloned source.
  • virthwver - Optional - esxi guest virtual HW version. See esxi documentation for compatible values. - Default 8 or taken from cloned source.
  • network_interfaces - Array of upto 10 network interfaces.
    • virtual_network - Required for each Guest NIC - This is the esxi virtual network name configured on esxi host.
    • mac_address - Optional - If not set, mac_address will be generated by esxi.
    • nic_type - Optional - See esxi documentation for compatibility list. - Default "e1000" or taken from cloned source.
  • virtual_disks - Optional - Array of additional storage to be added to the guest.
    • virtual_disk_id - Required - virtual_disk.id from esxi_virtual_disk resource.
    • slot - Required - SCSI_Ctrl:SCSI_id. Range '0:1' to '3:15'. SCSI_id 7 is not allowed.
  • power - Optional - on, off.
  • guest_startup_timeout - Optional - The amount of guest uptime, in seconds, to wait for an available IP address on this virtual machine. Default 120s.
  • guest_shutdown_timeout - Optional - The amount of time, in seconds, to wait for a graceful shutdown before doing a forced power off. Default 20s.
  • notes - Optional - The Guest notes (annotation).
  • guestinfo - Optional - The Guestinfo root
    • metadata - Optional - A JSON string containing the cloud-init metadata.
    • metadata.encoding - Optional - The encoding type for guestinfo.metadata. (base64 or gzip+base64)
    • userdata - Optional - A YAML document containing the cloud-init user data.
    • userdata.encoding - Optional - The encoding type for guestinfo.userdata. (base64 or gzip+base64)
    • vendordata - Optional - A YAML document containing the cloud-init vendor data.
    • vendordata.encoding - Optional - The encoding type for guestinfo.vendordata (base64 or gzip+base64)
  • ovf_properties - Optional - List of ovf properties to override in ovf/ova sources.
    • key - Required - Key of the property
    • value - Required - Value of the property
  • ovf_properties_timer - Optional - Length of time to wait for ovf_properties to process. Default 90s.

Using ovf_source & clone_from_vm

• clone_from_vm clones from sources on the esxi host.
  • The source VM must be powered off.
  • If the source VM is stored in a resource group, you must specify the path, for example.
    • clone_from_vm = "my_resource_group/my_source_vm"
• ovf_source clones from sources on your local hard disk or a URL.
  • A local ova, ovf, vmx file. See known issues (below) with vmx sources.
  • URL specifying a remote ova.
    • For example, Ubuntu cloud-images: https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/trusty/current/trusty-server-cloudimg-amd64.ova
• If neither is specified, then a bare-metal VM will be created. There will be no OS on this vm. If the VM is powered on, it will default to a network PXE boot.
• ovf_source & clone_from_vm are mutually exclusive.

Known issues with vmware_esxi

• Using a local source vmx files should not have any networks configured. There is very limited network interface mapping abilities in ovf_tools for vmx files. It's best to simply clean out all network information from your vmx file. The plugin will add network configuration to the destination vm guest as required.
• terraform import cannot import the guest disk type (thick, thin, etc) if the VM is powered on and cannot import the guest ip_address if it's powered off.
• Only numvcpus are supported. numcores is not supported.
• Doesn't support CDrom or floppy.
• Doesn't support Shared bus Interfaces, or Shared disks
• Using an incorrect password could lockout your account using default esxi pam settings.
• Don't set guest_startup_timeout or guest_shutdown_timeout to 0 (zero). It's valid, however it will be changed to default values by terraform.

Version History

• 1.7.0 Add support for esxi_hostssl (Setting the ssl port for ovftool).
• 1.6.4 Fix default IP dection. Fix Disk Stores containing spaces.
• 1.6.3 Mask username/password in debug logs. Set default, disk.EnableUUID = true.
• 1.6.2 Fix Defaults for guest_startup_timeout and guest_shutdown_timeout. Fix IP address detection type2 to always run regardless of guest_startup_timeout value.
• 1.6.1 Fix some minor refresh bugs, allow http(s) ovf sources.
• 1.6.0 Add support for ovf_properties for OVF/OVA sources.
• 1.5.4 Fix bare-metal build when using additional virtual disks.
• 1.5.3 Fix introduced bug when creating a bare-metal guest.
• 1.5.2 Handle large userdata using scp. Connectivity test will retry only 3 times to help prevent account lockout.
• 1.5.1 Windows Fix for special characters in esxi password.
• 1.5.0 Support for Terraform 0.12, migrated examples to 0.12 format. Support to modify virtual_network & nic_type. Windows fixes.
• 1.4.3 Fix virtdisk count. Fixes to support Terraform 0.12
• 1.4.2 Support 10 nics, more README changes
• 1.4.1 Fix README build instructions, static binaries, update guest types
• 1.4.0 Add GuestInfo (Cloud-init, Ignition!). Fix, allow esxi passwords with special characters.
• 1.3.0 Add support to Update storage attachments.
• 1.2.2 fix guest_update power, boot_disk_type defaults, README, windows support
• 1.2.1 Fix ssh connection retries.
• 1.2.0 Add support for notes (annotation)
• 1.1.1 Fix, unable to provision ova sources. go fmt.
• 1.1.0 Add Import support.
• 1.0.2 Switch authentication method to Keyboard Interactive. Read disk_type (thin, thick, etc)
• 1.0.1 Validate DiskStores and refresh
• 1.0.0 First Major release
• 0.1.2 Add ability to manage existing Guest VMs. A lot of code cleanup, various fixes, more validation.
• 0.1.0 Add virtual_disk resource.
• 0.0.8 Add virthwver.
• 0.0.7 build vmx from scratch if no source is specified
• 0.0.6 Add power resource.
• 0.0.5 Add network_interfaces resource.
• 0.0.4 Add more stuff.
• 0.0.3 Add memory and numvcpus resource. Add support to update some guests params.
• 0.0.2 Add Resource Pool resource.
• 0.0.1 Init release