This builds a Windows Server 2016 base Vagrant box using Packer.
Install VirtualBox (or libvirt on Linux based systems), packer, packer-provisioner-windows-update plugin and vagrant. If you are using Windows and Chocolatey, you can install everything with:
choco install -y virtualbox packer packer-provisioner-windows-update vagrant
To build the base box based on the Windows Server 2016 Evaluation ISO run:
packer build -only=windows-2016-amd64-virtualbox windows-2016.json # or make build-libvirt
If you want to use your own ISO, run the following instead:
packer build -var iso_url=<ISO_URL> -var iso_checksum=<ISO_SHA256_CHECKSUM> -only=windows-2016-amd64-virtualbox windows-2016.json
NB if the build fails with something like Post-processor failed: write /tmp/packer073329394/packer-windows-2016-amd64-virtualbox-1505050546-disk001.vmdk: no space left on device
you need to increase your temporary partition size or change its location as described in the packer TMPDIR/TMP environment variable documentation.
NB if you are having trouble building the base box due to floppy drive removal errors try adding, as a
workaround, "post_shutdown_delay": "30s",
to the windows-2016.json
file.
You can then add the base box to your local vagrant installation with:
vagrant box add -f windows-2016-amd64 windows-2016-amd64-virtualbox.box
And test this base box by launching an example Vagrant environment:
cd example
vagrant up --provider=virtualbox # or --provider=libvirt
NB if you are having trouble running the example with the vagrant libvirt provider check the libvirt logs in the host (e.g. sudo tail -f /var/log/libvirt/qemu/example_default.log
) and in the guest (inside C:\Windows\Temp
).
Then test with a more complete example:
git clone https://github.com/rgl/customize-windows-vagrant
cd customize-windows-vagrant
vagrant up --provider=virtualbox # or --provider=libvirt
Build the base box for the vagrant-libvirt provider with:
make build-libvirt
If you want to access the UI run:
spicy --uri 'spice+unix:///tmp/packer-windows-2016-amd64-libvirt-spice.socket'
You can connect to this machine through WinRM to run a remote command, e.g.:
winrs -r:localhost:55985 -u:vagrant -p:vagrant "whoami /all"
NB the exact local WinRM port should be displayed by vagrant, in this case:
==> default: Forwarding ports...
default: 5985 (guest) => 55985 (host) (adapter 1)
This base image uses WinRM. WinRM poses several limitations on remote administration,
those were worked around by disabling User Account Control (UAC) (aka Limited User Account (LUA)) in autounattend.xml
.
If needed, you can later enable it with:
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System' -Name EnableLUA -Value 1
Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System' -Name EnableLUA -Value 1
Restart-Computer
When Windows boots from the installation media its Setup application loads the a:\autounattend.xml
file.
It contains all the answers needed to automatically install Windows without any human intervention. For
more information on how this works see OEM Windows Deployment and Imaging Walkthrough.
autounattend.xml
was generated with the Windows System Image Manager (WSIM) application that is
included in the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK).
To create, edit and validate the a:\autounattend.xml
file you need to install the Deployment Tools that
are included in the Windows ADK.
If you are having trouble installing the ADK (adksetup
) or running WSIM (imgmgr
) when your
machine is on a Windows Domain and the log has:
Image path is [\??\C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment Tools\amd64\DISM\wimmount.sys]
Could not acquire privileges; GLE=0x514
Returning status 0x514
It means there's a group policy that is restricting your effective permissions, for an workaround,
run adksetup
and imgmgr
from a SYSTEM
shell, something like:
psexec -s -d -i cmd
adksetup
cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment Tools\WSIM"
imgmgr
For more information see Error installing Windows ADK.