vsphere-clone: Add support to clone a VM from a template in a content library

[ghost]

This issue was originally opened by @graham1228 as hashicorp/packer#10318. It was migrated here as a result of the Packer plugin split. The original body of the issue is below.

---

Please search the existing issues for relevant feature requests, and use the
reaction feature
(https://blog.github.com/2016-03-10-add-reactions-to-pull-requests-issues-and-comments/)
to add upvotes to pre-existing requests.

Community Note

Please vote on this issue by adding a 👍 reaction to the original issue to help the community and maintainers prioritize this request.
Please do not leave "+1" or "me too" comments, they generate extra noise for issue followers and do not help prioritize the request.
If you are interested in working on this issue or have submitted a pull request, please leave a comment.

Description

As a user of the vsphere-clone builder I would like the ability to create a vm from an existing vm template in a content library.

Use Case(s)

We use the content library to store our base OS OVF images and need to be able to utilize these templates to layer on solution specific software leveraging the vsphere-clone builder.

Potential configuration

Utilizing the same configuration item, additionally search in all content libraries for the template name

template (string) - Name of source VM. Path is optional.

Potential References

• https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/vsphere-clone-from-content-library/11818

[ghost]

Hi community, Any expected ETA on this item?
Would be a great addition to our realm at the moment.

[RP-TSB]

Hello Team, at least an initial response would be nice to know that you are having this issue under your radar.
I recently changed our pipeline to import our resulting templates as OVF into the Content Library and realizing it later can't be used for a subsequent stage was highly disappointing. Many thanks in advance.

[outhex]

Hi, any ETA on this?

[fbecker]

Any news on this? We desperately need this feature...

[teadur]

Would be nice addition to my setup aswell.
@hmalphettes are you working on it ?

[hmalphettes]

@teadur I am not working on this feature at the moment. I think github picked up a reference to my fork when I ran a rebase.
Sorry to leave you hanging here.

[teadur]

@teadur I am not working on this feature at the moment. I think github picked up a reference to my fork when I ran a rebase. Sorry to leave you hanging here.

no worries, I hope you get back to it at one point.

[fbecker]

Just wanted to let you folks know that I'm currently working on this. I have an implementation ready that uses the existing vsphere-clone builder but I'm wondering if it would be more convenient to split this functionality into a new builder, as there are quite a few features (OVF network mappings, OVF properties etc.) that do no apply to regular vm cloning. Also, if there is a need for deploying from local OVF/OVA files, this might be easier to account for.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated!

[freimer]

We need this also. As far as a new builder, I'm not sure. Documentation on the existing builder says you can include vapp properties, which should cover any properties in the OVF/OVA. Is the implementation you have ready available in a pre-release or branch we can pull and test?

[psmola]

I tested functionality for type vsphere-clone and I tried clone from existing Content library object but I received error: The provided source virtual machine ID vm-9083 is from a virtual machine template, which is not supported.

As I understand - know it's not possible to clone from existing CL template?

[tenthirtyam]

As I understand - know it's not possible to clone from existing CL template?

@psmola - correct, this is tracked as an enhancement per the attached issue labels.

[teadur]

+1 for the new Builder

Just wanted to let you folks know that I'm currently working on this. I have an implementation ready that uses the existing vsphere-clone builder but I'm wondering if it would be more convenient to split this functionality into a new builder, as there are quite a few features (OVF network mappings, OVF properties etc.) that do no apply to regular vm cloning. Also, if there is a need for deploying from local OVF/OVA files, this might be easier to account for.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated!

@fbecker How are you doing, can we help you with the testing somehow ?

[RDG88]

Would love this feature!

[cybops35]

+1 for this feature 🙏

[sich97]

Just wanted to let you folks know that I'm currently working on this. I have an implementation ready that uses the existing vsphere-clone builder but I'm wondering if it would be more convenient to split this functionality into a new builder, as there are quite a few features (OVF network mappings, OVF properties etc.) that do no apply to regular vm cloning. Also, if there is a need for deploying from local OVF/OVA files, this might be easier to account for.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated!

@fbecker Hi. Any way I could help out? This feature would be very useful indeed