Packer: VMware ISO builder broken on master when building against ESXi - ssh: no key found

[DanHam]

$ PACKER_LOG=1 packer build debian-esxi-standalone.json 2>packer.log
vmware-iso-vsphere output will be in this color.

Build 'vmware-iso-vsphere' errored: Failed creating VMware driver: Unable to initialize any driver for this platform. The errors
from each driver are shown below. Please fix at least one driver
to continue:
* ssh: no key found

Full log: HERE
Template: debian-esxi-standalone.json HERE

Note that you can reproduce the error without having to stand up an ESXi instance to test against as the build doesn't get that far.

I haven't had time to look at this properly. However, from a very cursory look, the most likely candidate for the error is #6613 (specifically fa44a4546f29d86c4015545b0adbc4464aedb4aa)

[azr]

Howdy,

Thanks for making an issue ! 🙂
I have the exact same issue when I checkout v1.1.3 or way older releases ( that I could build ); can you please point me to a commit where it works for you ?

Edit: same thing with https://github.com/nickcharlton/packer-esxi, so it's likekly not your config, will look into it 🔎

[DanHam]

I have the exact same issue when I checkout v1.1.3 or way older releases

@azr Something's not right with your builds there! This was working up until recently - I used these templates to test #6448 which was version 1.2.4.

Immediately prior to the merge of #6613 works:
Packer v1.2.6-dev (d883dfe67) - see the log HERE

Immediately after the merge of #6613 does not work:
Packer v1.2.6-dev (340363a64) - see the log HERE

This definitely means the problem was introduced by #6613!!

I don't have any more time to look into this but, like I said before, fa44a45 would be a good place to start looking...

[azr]

Hey @DanHam yup you're totally right, twice, I did something wrong with my config and the problem comes from fa44a45;

see I thought PrivateKey was the actual private key where in fact PrivateKey refers to the PrivateKeyPath and I got confused and fixed it a bit too quickly.

Coming with a fix ASAP.

[azr]

Okay I think this commit fixed it, I tried and it worked;

but if you have some time, please tell me if branch ssh_keys_centralised (or 16f73c90e) fixes it for you.

PS: thanks for your vigilance !! 👍

[DanHam]

👍 Yep... building off the ssh_keys_centralised branch fixes the issue.

[SwampDragons]

@DanHam thanks for reporting this!

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