Packer: [question] How to output in vbox format, not ovf or ova

[emo3]

I have a question.
How does one output the results of packer and not have it complete the ovf/ova conversion step.

[rickard-von-essen]

Could you explain a bit more?

[emo3]

Per documentation:
The VirtualBox Packer builder is able to create VirtualBox virtual machines and export them in the OVA or OVF format.
I want to skip that step, ie do not export the virtual machine.

[emo3]

You have a command keep_registered in vmware. Can we get the same cmd within virtualbox?

[rickard-von-essen]

Could you explain the scenario, i e why you want this?

[rickard-von-essen]

keep_registered is for ESXi and is bit strange fit for the purpose of Packer.

[tmzt]

@emo3 Are you asking for vagrant-like functionality? Create a virtualbox vm and leave it registered in the VirtualBox settings? Or are you looking to export the resulting VirtualBox .vbox/.vmdk files without converting to ova/ovf?

[emo3]

Yes I am to all your questions. I want to verify the .vbox before I move on. IE: iterate development with the kickstart and packer files.

[emo3]

Added code via #3954. This will keep the vbox registered.
I will work on creating code to skip the converting to ova/ovf.

[synthesizerpatel]

This use has been available in master for a while if I understand you correctly.

I use virtualbox-iso to generate an OVA, and as a post-processor I also generate a vagrant .box file. In my case I want both (an OVA to import into vSphere or to convert into an AMI), and a .box file for developers to be able to use the same base boxes on their desktops.

The vagrant post-processor seems to run in less than a minute for me, so for iterative development it's been pretty good.

You can disable saving the OVA file by setting keep_input_artifact to false.

{
 "builders": [{
      "type": "virtualbox-iso",
      ....
    }],
 "post-processors": [
    {
      "type": "vagrant",
      "keep_input_artifact": true,
      "output": "{{ "blah.box" }}
    }
  ]
}

[emo3]

I will have to test that and see. Thanks for the input.

[mwhooker]

Going to close this for now

[jerkyrs]

OVA exports from Virtualbox are not automatically supported by VMware ESXi due to a variety of configurations necessary in OVF like hardware.