WilliamLam.com

Building a custom Ubuntu image using Packer Examples for VMware vSphere project

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I am a HUGE fan of HashiCorp Packer and I have been using it for a number of years across many different projects including the VMware Event Broker Appliance (VEBA) solution. While it can certainly feel daunting at first, the same can be said for just about anything new, I typically point folks over to Ryan Johnson's fantastic Packer Examples for VMware vSphere project as a starting point, where you can find working Packer examples across a number of popular OS distributions for both Windows and Linux.

Most recently, I was helping out a few colleagues who was interested in automating the build of an Ubuntu Desktop image that could then be exported to an OVF/OVA. Of course, my recommendation was for them take a look at Ryan's project and they should be able to augment the existing Ubuntu Server 22.04 example. Interestingly enough, while I always recommend Ryan's Packer example repo, I have not personally used it myself and this is primarily due to the existing customization I have in my Packer builds which includes the use of custom OVF properties, which you can read more about HERE, HERE AND HERE.

Since I was recommending the project, I figure I should probably give it a try at least once and the Ubuntu Desktop addition should be a trivial thing to add ... right?

Ryan's project is extremely comprehensive and while things should just work if you use the default builds, but if you wish to make tweaks, I can certainly understand that you could feel overwhelmed, which is exactly how I felt when trying to figure out how to augment the existing Ubuntu Server 22.04 build.


While I do have experience in using Packer, it did take me a few attempts as I ran into some setup issues on my macOS system and just ended up deploying an Ubuntu 22.04 VM to then use as my build host. The required change to go from an Ubuntu Server to Ubuntu Desktop was minimal, you do need to understand the project layout and ultimately how the repo has been setup, which includes the use of Ansible Packer Provisioner, which was not something I had used before.

I wanted to put together this blog post, not only as a reference for myself but also for anyone who wants to start using Packer and Ryan's awesome repo but need a bit more guidance if you intend to perform further customization.

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VUM UMDS Docker Container for vSphere 6.5

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Early last week, I had published an article on how to automate the deployment of VUM's Update Manager Download Service (UMDS) in vSphere 6.5 for an Ubuntu 14.04 distribution. The interesting backstory to that script is that it started from a Docker Container that I had initially built for the VUM UMDS. I found that being able to quickly spin up UMDS instance using a Docker Container purely from a testing standpoint was much easier than needing to deploy a full VM, especially as I have Docker running on my desktop machines. Obviously, there are limitations with using a Docker Container, especially if you plan to use UMDS for a longer duration and need persistence. However, for quick lab purposes, it may just fit the bill and even with Docker Containers, you can use Docker Volumes to help persist the downloaded content.

You can find the Dockerfile and its respective scripts on my Github repo here: https://github.com/lamw/vum-umds-docker

Below are the instructions on how to use the VUM UMDS Docker Container.

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Automating the installation of VUM Update Manager Download Service (UMDS) for Linux in vSphere 6.5

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One of the most highly requested feature from customers with regards to the adoption of the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) is to have vSphere Update Manager (VUM) available as a Virtual Appliance. With the vSphere 6.5 release, this is now a reality as VUM is now embedded within the VCSA. The VUM service is also automatically enabled and associated with the vCenter Server instance which means from a customer standpoint, it is zero touch to get VUM up and running!

In addition to VUM being part of the VCSA 6.5, there is also the VUM Update Manager Download Service (UMDS) that can be installed on a separate Linux system. You can find the UMDS installer within the VCSA 6.5 ISO under the umds directory. To install UMDS, there are several pre-requisites that you must meet, some of which are documented here. The other requirements which are not documented are the additional OS package dependencies required to run the UMDS installer. While going through this by hand the first time, I found the following packages were required to install on an Ubuntu 14.04 distribution:

  • perl
  • tar
  • sed
  • psmisc
  • unixodbc
  • postgresql
  • postgresql-contrib
  • odbc-postgresql

For those of you who know me, if I have to perform something manually once, I might as well automate it for the future 🙂 I decided to create this quick shell script called install_umds65.sh which will allow you to easily deploy UMDS on an Ubuntu LTS 14.04 distribution. This can be useful for automated deployments or quickly standing up a lab environment.

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