github.com/askholme/packer@v0.7.2-0.20140924152349-70d9566a6852/website/source/docs/builders/vmware.html.markdown (about) 1 --- 2 layout: "docs" 3 page_title: "VMware Builder" 4 --- 5 6 # VMware Builder 7 8 The VMware builder is able to create VMware virtual machines for use 9 with any VMware product. 10 11 Packer actually comes with multiple builders able to create VMware 12 machines, depending on the strategy you want to use to build the image. 13 Packer supports the following VMware builders: 14 15 * [vmware-iso](/docs/builders/vmware-iso.html) - Starts from 16 an ISO file, creates a brand new VMware VM, installs an OS, 17 provisions software within the OS, then exports that machine to create 18 an image. This is best for people who want to start from scratch. 19 20 * [vmware-vmx](/docs/builders/vmware-vmx.html) - This builder 21 imports an existing VMware machine (from a VMX file), runs provisioners 22 on top of that VM, and exports that machine to create an image. 23 This is best if you have an existing VMware VM you want to use as the 24 source. As an additional benefit, you can feed the artifact of this 25 builder back into Packer to iterate on a machine.