Skip to main content

Configuring a Windows Image sourced from CoreWeave Cloud

Objective: Use our Packer Virtual Server to configure a Windows image from CoreWeave Cloud.
Overview: Packer by Hashicorp uses KVM to spin up a virtual machine and perform configuration actions that would normally done by human hand. You feed it an image, which it then connects to via SSH, and it executes scripts/commands you describe in the configuration JSON. This process consists of using the generated Virtual Server to configure our cloned image using Packer. Reference Packer's QEMU docs for more information.

Note

This guide assumes you have created a Packer Worker VS

References:​

Configuring the Packer manifest​

Using win.json, we'll need to make a few edits before configuring our image:

title="win.json"
{

    "builders": [

        {

            "type": "qemu",

            "accelerator": "kvm",

            "communicator": "ssh",

            "headless": true,

            "disk_image": false,

            "cpus": "6",

            "memory": "16384",

            "format": "raw",

            "iso_checksum": "none",

            "iso_url": "/dev/vdb",

            "skip_resize_disk": false,

            "skip_compaction": false,

            "disk_size": "80000M",

            "qemuargs": [

                ["-machine","pc-q35-4.2,accel=kvm,usb=off,vmport=off,dump-guest-core=off"],

                ["-cpu", "host"],

                [ "-smp", "cpus=4,sockets=1" ],

                [ "-cdrom", "cidata.iso" ],

                ["-drive", "file=/dev/vdb"]

            ],

            "net_device": "e1000",

            "ssh_username": "user",

            "ssh_password": "packer",

            "ssh_timeout": "6h",

            "shutdown_command": "cmd /c shutdown -s -t 00"

        }

    ],

    "provisioners": [

        {

            "type": "powershell",

            "execute_command": "{{.Path}}; exit $LastExitCode",

            "inline": [

                         "Install-WindowsUpdate -Install -MicrosoftUpdate -IgnoreUserInput -AcceptAll"

            ],

             "start_retry_timeout": "20m"

        }

    ]

}
Note

/dev/vdb refers to our cloned block device

Note

The credentials in this configuration are created when the VM reads the image output of create-ci-data.sh

Note

In this example, we are using the PowerShell provisioner to install Windows Updates. To learn more and view more provisioners, view Hashicorp's documentation.

Generate credentials for the Packer VM​

Similar to Cloud images provided by Canonical and RedHat, images from CoreWeave do not have users by default – they are generated by Cloud-init on initial instance launch.

To create a user for packer to communicate with, we need to run create-ci-data.sh, which will generate an ISO mounted by the Packer VM with credential information:

title="create-ci-data.sh"
cat <<EOF >user-data

#cloud-config

ssh_pwauth: True

users:

  - name: user

    plain_text_passwd: packer

    sudo: ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL

    shell: /bin/bash

    lock_passwd: false

EOF



cat <<EOF >meta-data

{"instance-id":"packer-worker.tenant-local","local-hostname":"packer-worker"}

EOF



genisoimage -output cidata.iso -input-charset utf-8 -volid cidata -joliet -r \

            user-data meta-data
Note

This generates an ISO (cidata.iso) referenced by our JSON that will be presented to the VM Packer configures

Important

Note the username and password referenced in our JSON is created here

Execute Packer docker image​

With our cidata ISO created, we can kick off the Packer build with launch-docker.sh win.json

title="launch_docker.sh"
CONFIG="$1"

exec docker run --rm --dns 1.1.1.1 --device /dev/kvm --privileged --net=host \

     -v /var/lib/libvirt:/var/lib/libvirt \

     -v /var/run/libvirt:/var/run/libvirt \

     --volume $PWD:/work -it packer:latest \

     packer build -force -on-error=abort \

       $CONFIG

Once Packer has kicked started the virtual machine – it is viewable locally with any VNC client:

Since QEMU is referencing the PVC directly, all changes made to the cloned images are written directly to the mounted PVC.

Once Packer has completed, the Virtual Server can be safely deleted (k delete vs packer-worker). The modified, now updated PVC will remain in your namespace to serve as a source image for subsequent Virtual Servers.

Last updated on