Does vSphere iso on Packer allow adding SCSI Controllers and assigning hard disks to SCSI Controllers?

[amitbhadra]

From the vSphere UI, I can add "New SCSI Controller". My use case is to create 4 SCSI Controllers. And when I create a new hard disk, I want to assign each hard disk to some SCSI Controller.

So essentially, suppose I have 8 hard disks and 4 SCSI Controllers, and I want to add Hard disks 1 and 2 to SCSI 0 as 0:0 and 0:1, Hard disks 3 and 4 to SCSI 1 as 1:0 and 1:1, etc.

But I see no such option in Packer. When I create 8 Hard disks, they all get assigned to SCSI 0 as 0:0, 0:1, 0:2, 0:3 .. 0:7.

[jhawk28]

The https://www.packer.io/docs/builders/vmware/vsphere-iso#disk_controller_type lets you define what kind of controller is used. Currently only one controller is supported.

[amitbhadra]

@jhawk28 Do you know if this is possible on Terraform?

[jhawk28]

I don't know about Terraform, but my pull request (#9519) should be able to add the capability.

[jhawk28]

I'm not sure I got everything 100% so no guarantee, but you can test out the binary here: https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/hashicorp/packer/5894/workflows/f3c58557-e7e9-461e-b30f-2045a3920494/jobs/63554/artifacts

I made disk controller a list: https://deploy-preview-9519--packer-www.netlify.app/docs/builders/vmware/vsphere-iso#disk_controller_type

Assign the disk to the controller with the index: https://deploy-preview-9519--packer-www.netlify.app/docs/builders/vmware/vsphere-iso#disk_controller_index

[amitbhadra]

Hey so will the config now look something like this?

"disk_controller_type" : [ "scsi", "scsi"],
"storage": [
    {
      "disk_size": 15000,
      "disk_controller_index": 0
    },
    {
      "disk_size": 20000,
      "disk_controller_index": 0
    },
    {
      "disk_size": 20000,
      "disk_controller_index": 1
    },
    {
      "disk_size": 20000,
      "disk_controller_index": 1
    }
],

[jhawk28]

exactly

[amitbhadra]

Hi, your code changes exactly fit my use case! Thanks so much.
But, I must mention his. I don't know if something messed up the stability of the packer binary. I have tried with almost similar parameters(instead of 4 scsi, I'm working with 4 pvscsi controllers). Out of 7 runs, it errored out 3 times.

The first error out was a "general server fault" but rest assured there was no such fault. This time, it was typing out the boot command and in between, it failed.
Second and third errors happened when it finished typing the boot command and it was stuck at a network unreachable for about 5 mins. This was solved when I stopped the run and started a new run.

It'd be great if there's a stable binary for this.

[jhawk28]

this build would include the new boot command stuff: #9406
@sylviamoss

[amitbhadra]

Thanks, will you have a new Packer official release with these changes any time soon?

[jhawk28]

No idea, I just create pull requests. They seem to release about once a month.

[amitbhadra]

Please keep this issue open, I'll report back on the stability of the Packer binary you gave me. Or if you deliver newer binaries, I can test them out too.

[jhawk28]

I think they would prefer to have a new issue open for the boot stability issues. @SwampDragons would know.

[amitbhadra]

I'll make new issues with possible screenshots as and when I get them.

[SwampDragons]

Correct, I would like a new issue for any new stability issues. Sounds like this one can be closed once I merge 9519.

[ghost]

I'm going to lock this issue because it has been closed for 30 days ⏳. This helps our maintainers find and focus on the active issues.

If you have found a problem that seems similar to this, please open a new issue and complete the issue template so we can capture all the details necessary to investigate further.