Trouble with sshd_config with packer + virtualbox + vagrant

[Stephen Schlie]

Hi Folks,

I've run into an issue recently with packer where my output vagrant box has password based ssh disabled by default, even when I explicitly enable it in the last provisioner step. I'll include the template json below but in short we build an ubuntu 18.04.3 image with the virtualbox-iso builder, run a couple of scripts to setup things, and output the box.

This was working until recently, I went and updated our setup to start building amis too, and the vagrant VMs stopped working. I tried rolling most of it back to see if it helped but I am still seeing this issue.

template:

  "_comment": "This file managed by salt. Local changes will be overwritten.",
  "builders": [
    {
      "vm_name": "{{user `vmname`}}",
      "type": "virtualbox-iso",
      "headless": true,
      "vrdp_bind_address": "0.0.0.0",
      "guest_os_type": "Ubuntu_64",
      "iso_url": "http://{{user `webserver`}}/{{user `os_file`}}.iso",
      "iso_checksum_url": "{{user `iso_checksum`}}",
      "iso_checksum_type": "file",
      "ssh_username": "packer",
      "ssh_password": "packer",
      "ssh_wait_timeout": "15m",
      "shutdown_command": "echo 'packer' | sudo -S shutdown -P now",
      "disk_size": "30000",
      "hard_drive_interface": "sata",
      "vboxmanage": [
        [
          "modifyvm",
          "{{.Name}}",
          "--boot1",
          "dvd"
        ],
        [
          "modifyvm",
          "{{.Name}}",
          "--boot2",
          "disk"
        ],
        [
          "modifyvm",
          "{{.Name}}",
          "--nictype1",
          "virtio"
        ],
        [
          "modifyvm",
          "{{.Name}}",
          "--memory",
          "2048"
        ],
        [
          "modifyvm",
          "{{.Name}}",
          "--cpus",
          "4"
        ],
        [
          "modifyvm",
          "{{.Name}}",
          "--audio",
          "none"
        ],
        [
          "modifyvm",
          "{{.Name}}",
          "--usb",
          "off"
        ]
      ],
      "boot_command": [
        "<esc><esc><enter><wait>",
        "/install/vmlinuz noapic ",
        "preseed/url=http://{{user `webserver`}}/{{user `os_file`}}.cfg ",
        "debian-installer=en_US auto locale=en_US kbd-chooser/method=us ",
        "hostname={{user `vmname`}} ",
        "fb=false debconf/frontend=noninteractive ",
        "keyboard-configuration/modelcode=SKIP keyboard-configuration/layout=USA ",
        "keyboard-configuration/variant=USA console-setup/ask_detect=false ",
        "DEBCONF=debug ",
        "initrd=/install/initrd.gz -- <enter>"
      ],
      "output_directory": "vbox/"
    },
    {
      "type": "amazon-ebs",
      "access_key": "{{ user `access_key` }}",
      "secret_key": "{{ user `secret_key` }}",
      "ami_users": [
        "<snip>",
        "<snip>"
      ],
      "region": "us-east-1",
      "source_ami_filter": {
        "filters": {
          "name": "ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/*ubuntu-bionic-18.04-amd64-server-*",
          "root-device-type": "ebs"
        },
        "owners": ["099720109477"],
        "most_recent": true
      },
      "vpc_id": "vpc-04ee3040de35bc755",
      "subnet_id": "subnet-05b0e1ad8679eb394",
      "instance_type": "t3.micro",
      "ssh_username": "ubuntu",
      "ami_name": "{{user `vmname`}}-{{user `salt_environment`}}-{{ user `commit` }}",
      "spot_price": "0.0104",
      "run_tags": {
        "application": "packer"
      }
    }
  ],
  "provisioners": [
    {
      "type": "file",
      "source": "upload/",
      "destination": "/tmp"
    },
    {
      "type": "shell",
      "inline": [
        "/usr/bin/cloud-init status --wait"
      ],
      "only": ["amazon-ebs"]
    },
    {
      "type": "shell",
      "scripts": [
        "/etc/vmimage/init.sh"
      ],
      "environment_vars": [
        "SALT_ENVIRONMENT={{user `salt_environment`}}",
        "SALT_VERSION={{user `salt_version`}}",
        "SLS_STATES={{user `sls_states`}}"
      ]
    },
    {
      "type": "shell",
      "inline": [
        "sudo mount /home/packer/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso /mnt",
        "sudo sh /mnt/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run || true",
        "sudo umount /mnt",
        "sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name > /home/packer/vmtype"
      ],
      "only": ["virtualbox-iso"]
    },
    {
      "type": "shell",
      "inline": [
        "sudo sed -i 's/^PasswordAuthentication no/PasswordAuthentication yes/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config",
        "sudo cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config"
      ],
      "only": ["virtualbox-iso"]
     }
  ],
  "post-processors": [
    {
      "type": "vagrant",
      "output": "plos_{{.Provider}}_{{user `commit`}}_{{isotime \"2006-01-02-150405\"}}.box",
      "keep_input_artifact": true,
      "only": ["virtualbox-iso"]
    }
  ]
}

The init.sh script just installs some packages and sets up salt to run. Then the final step is to flip that sshd config setting so we can login the first time to set things up in Vagrant. You can see I was cat'ing out the file to be sure it was getting changed, and it is, but when I fire up my box in vagrant, it is set back to "no" thus preventing our first login with packer/packer to do our initial provisioning.

I'm open to changing up how we do things, but am lost as to why my sshd_config changes are being reset?

[Rickard von Essen]

One guess would be that cloud-init might do this. 

--
This mailing list is governed under the HashiCorp Community Guidelines - https://www.hashicorp.com/community-guidelines.html. Behavior in violation of those guidelines may result in your removal from this mailing list.
 
GitHub Issues: https://github.com/mitchellh/packer/issues
IRC: #packer-tool on Freenode
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Packer" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to packer-tool...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/packer-tool/cb78b72f-daa7-40e3-8760-f251338b0110%40googlegroups.com.

[Stephen Schlie]

I had thought the same but cloud-init does not seem to be installed on the 18.04.3 server image (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/releases/bionic/release/ubuntu-18.04.3-server-amd64.iso) so I'm reasonably confident that isn't it, unless cloud-init is sneakily on there somehow but not showing? I don't see it's dirs in `/etc/cloud` or in `/var/lib/cloud` nor does it show in `apt list --installed`.

[Stephen Schlie]

As it turns out I'm a complete moron, our setup for Vagrant has a file that overrides some settings, and I missed that it was overriding which box to use, once set correctly things are working just fine. While I'm upset about being a moron I'm happy I'm not insane.