Packer: new communicator types 'qemu', 'vmware'

[shantanugadgil]

Feature Description

I would like to request new communicator types, besides the ssh and winrm.
For QEMU types of virtualization (Proxmox), it could be named "qemu" and for VMware ESXi types it could be named "vmware"

Use Case(s)

The use case is to be able to copy files into the guest VM even if the guest doesn't have SSH (or WinRM) enabled.

The way I see that can be done is that first packer copies the file onto the virtualization host and then into the guest VM using the capabilities of the virtualization software.

Of course, the QEMU Guest Agent (or VMware Tools) must be installed inside the guest VM.

NOTE: for RHEL/CentOS guests, the file operations should be enabled in the guest VM in the qemu-guest-agent config file /etc/sysconfig/qemu-ga (set the option BLACKLIST_RPC blank)

For vmtools, I haven't experimented, but I think this is always ON (? I am not sure)

This could also be possibly expanded for remote execution inside the guest VM.

[SwampDragons]

This is a cool idea, but I'm not sure when the team will get a chance to implement it. PRs are definitely welcome, though -- I think this is a neat area where we could expand user options.

[shantanugadgil]

This is a cool idea, but I'm not sure when the team will get a chance to implement it. PRs are definitely welcome

Apologies, but not a gopher of that much capability yet! 😢

[SwampDragons]

Totally understand! If you do decide to try, I'd be happy to give you some tips.

[SwampDragons]

This is kind of related to #8242 in the sense that both are requesting custom communicators.