The Packer Plugin for VMware Desktop Hypervisors is a plugin that can be used to create virtual machine images for use with VMware desktop hypervisors, VMware Fusion Pro and VMware Workstation Pro.

To install this plugin, add following to your Packer configuration and run packer init.

packer {
  required_plugins {
    vmware = {
      version = "~> 2"
      source = "github.com/vmware/vmware"
    }
  }
}

Alternatively, you can use packer plugins install to manage installation of this plugin.

packer plugins install github.com/vmware/vmware

The plugin includes two builders which are able to create 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.