chef-metal-vsphere

This is a chef-metal provisioner for VMware vSphere.

Currently, chef-metal-vsphere supports provisioning Unix/ssh guest VMs.

Try It Out

vSphere VM Template

Create or obtain a unix/linux VM template. The VM template must:

• be capable of installing Chef 11.8 or newer
• run vmware-tools on system boot (provides visiblity to ip address of the running VM)
• provide access via ssh
• provide a user account with NOPASSWD sudo

Example recipe

require 'chef_metal_vsphere'

with_vsphere_provisioner vsphere_host: 'vcenter-host-name',
  vsphere_insecure: true,
  vsphere_user:     'you_user_name',
  vsphere_password: 'your_mothers_maiden_name'     # consider using a chef-vault

with_provisioner_options('bootstrap_options' => {
  datacenter:         'datacenter_name',
  cluster:            'cluster_name',
  resource_pool:      'resource_pool_name',            # often the same as the cluster_name
  datastore:          'datastore_name',
  template_name:      'name_of_template_vm',           # may be a VM or a VM Template
  template_folder:    'folder_containing_template_vm',
  vm_folder:          'folder_to_clone_vms_into',
  customization_spec: 'standard-config',               # optional

  ssh: {                                             # net-ssh start() options
    user:                  'username_on_vm',         # must have nopasswd sudo
    password:              'name_of_your_first_pet', # consider using a chef-vault
    port:                  22,
    auth_methods:          ['password'],
    user_known_hosts_file: '/dev/null',              # don't do this in production
    paranoid:              false,                    # don't do this in production, either
    keys:                  [ ],                      # consider using a chef-vault
    keys_only:             false
    }
  })

1.upto 2 do |n|
  machine "metal_#{n}" do
    action [:create]

    ## optionally add options per-machine customizations
    add_provisioner_options('bootstrap_options' => {
      num_cpus: n,
      memory_mb: 1024 * n,
      annotation: "metal_#{n} created by chef-metal-vsphere"
    })
  end

  machine_file "/tmp/metal_#{n}.txt" do
    machine "metal_#{n}"
    content "Hello machine #{n}!"
  end

  machine "metal_#{n}" do
    action [:stop]
  end

  machine "metal_#{n}" do
    # note: no need to :stop before :delete
    action [:delete]
  end

end

This will clone your VM template to create two VMware Virtual Machines, "metal_1" and "metal_2", in the vSphere Folder specified by vm_folder, bootstrapped to an empty runlist. It will then stop (guest shutdown) and delete the vms.

Roadmap

Check out TODO.md

Bugs and Contact

Please submit bugs at chef-metal-vpshere, contact Brian Dupras on Twitter at @briandupras, email at rallysoftware-cookbooks@rallydev.com.

Warning if you get an rbvmomi error regarding VMODL::AnyType, add gem 'nokogiri', '1.5.5' to your dependencies.