github.com/aspring/packer@v0.8.1-0.20150629211158-9db281ac0f89/website/source/docs/builders/vmware.html.markdown (about) 1 --- 2 layout: "docs" 3 page_title: "VMware Builder" 4 description: |- 5 The VMware Packer builder is able to create VMware virtual machines for use with any VMware product. 6 --- 7 8 # VMware Builder 9 10 The VMware Packer builder is able to create VMware virtual machines for use 11 with any VMware product. 12 13 Packer actually comes with multiple builders able to create VMware 14 machines, depending on the strategy you want to use to build the image. 15 Packer supports the following VMware builders: 16 17 * [vmware-iso](/docs/builders/vmware-iso.html) - Starts from 18 an ISO file, creates a brand new VMware VM, installs an OS, 19 provisions software within the OS, then exports that machine to create 20 an image. This is best for people who want to start from scratch. 21 22 * [vmware-vmx](/docs/builders/vmware-vmx.html) - This builder 23 imports an existing VMware machine (from a VMX file), runs provisioners 24 on top of that VM, and exports that machine to create an image. 25 This is best if you have an existing VMware VM you want to use as the 26 source. As an additional benefit, you can feed the artifact of this 27 builder back into Packer to iterate on a machine.