Debian Packer Builder for Proxmox

This project provides Packer files to build a basic image of Debian for use on a Proxmox system. Use it as is or as a starting point for a more fully customized image. This project installs the base system and include salt-minion. If you dont want to use salt-minion you can remove the salt-minion package from the cloud-init file. Modify the root password in the cloud-init, the default password value is packer. Keep in mind that you can also set the cloud-init data via Terraform when you create a new VM from the template.

This has been tested on Proxmox 8.2.7

Getting started

To use this you will need:

• ISO files for the OS you want to build an image for uploaded to Proxmox:
  • Debian ISO
• A working Proxmox system
• Packer. This project is tested with Packer version 1.11.2

The OS ISO file will need to be uploaded to your Proxmox system.

The simplest way to get the ISO file on your Proxmox system is to use the "Download from URL" option on the disk/share that you configured for ISO files.

Building an Image

Create a variables.pkrvars.hcl file and update the variables. For a full set of variables you can look at example_variables.pkrvars.hcl file.

Using the Makefile

You can build the following templates by running make.

Variabel in this Template

• proxmox_url - A string in this Format: https://0.0.0.0:8006/api2/json
• username - A string in this Format: packer@pve!packer
• token - Your secret token as string
• node - Name of your node as string
• proxmox_storage_pool - Name of the Pool as string
• vm_id - The Id of the VM as string

After the image is built

Once the image is built you will want to adjust any remaining settings in the template including creating a cloud-init drive. A cloud-init drive must be created for you to ssh into any new VMs you create. For details on how to do so visit https://blog.dustinrue.com/proxmox-cloud-init/.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Dustin Rue how build similar for CentOS/Rocky/Ubuntu.