packer virtual box image failing with pywinauto

Shubham Bansal

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Jun 20, 2019, 10:50:30 AM6/20/19

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I was using a script in the provisioners of packer in windows virtual box machine, which would automate installing of windows desktop app using pywinauto. But it is not able to detect any open windows and not even able to take screenshot.
it gives error for screenshot as "OSError: screen grab failed"

Is there a way to see the provisioner script actually running in packer built machine?

Udbhav

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Jun 20, 2019, 2:24:55 PM6/20/19

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Packer logs what provisioner it's running. Follow this to enable logging in packer

https://www.packer.io/docs/other/debugging.html

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Shubham Bansal

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Jun 20, 2019, 2:37:22 PM6/20/19

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I tried this, but the logs are not very clear as of why the GUI cannot be captured with packer.
Even with the headless set as false, virtual box opens but remains stuck at login screen, while the scripts are running in the console of the host machine.

Udbhav

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Jun 20, 2019, 2:39:34 PM6/20/19

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Can you please provide the logs of the packer?

On Thu, Jun 20, 2019 at 11:37 AM Shubham Bansal <sbans...@gmail.com> wrote:

I tried this, but the logs are not very clear as of why the GUI cannot be captured with packer.
Even with the headless set as false, virtual box opens but remains stuck at login screen, while the scripts are running in the console of the host machine.

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Shubham Bansal

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Jun 20, 2019, 2:43:50 PM6/20/19

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virtualbox-ovf output will be in this color.

==> virtualbox-ovf: Creating floppy disk...

virtualbox-ovf: Copying files flatly from floppy_files

virtualbox-ovf: Copying file: ./scripts/win_auto.py

virtualbox-ovf: Copying file: ./answer_files/Autounattend.xml

virtualbox-ovf: Done copying files from floppy_files

virtualbox-ovf: Collecting paths from floppy_dirs

virtualbox-ovf: Resulting paths from floppy_dirs : []

virtualbox-ovf: Done copying paths from floppy_dirs

==> virtualbox-ovf: Creating ephemeral key pair for SSH communicator...

==> virtualbox-ovf: Created ephemeral SSH key pair for communicator

==> virtualbox-ovf: Retrieving Guest additions

==> virtualbox-ovf: Trying /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso

==> virtualbox-ovf: /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso => /Users/shubhambansal/rippling/rippling-hardware-client-tests/packer_cache/7784a55a71d48a1e9b5c487431438fef0f19d87f.iso

==> virtualbox-ovf: leaving retrieve loop for Guest additions

==> virtualbox-ovf: Retrieving OVF/OVA

==> virtualbox-ovf: Trying ../../Documents/MSEdge-Win10.ovf

==> virtualbox-ovf: Using ovf inplace

==> virtualbox-ovf: leaving retrieve loop for OVF/OVA

==> virtualbox-ovf: Importing VM: ../../Documents/MSEdge-Win10.ovf

==> virtualbox-ovf: Attaching floppy disk...

==> virtualbox-ovf: Creating forwarded port mapping for communicator (SSH, WinRM, etc) (host port 3152)

==> virtualbox-ovf: Executing custom VBoxManage commands...

virtualbox-ovf: Executing: modifyvm packer-virtualbox-ovf-1561034336 --memory 4096

virtualbox-ovf: Executing: modifyvm packer-virtualbox-ovf-1561034336 --cpus 2

virtualbox-ovf: Executing: modifyvm packer-virtualbox-ovf-1561034336 --vrde on

==> virtualbox-ovf: Starting the virtual machine...

virtualbox-ovf: The VM will be run headless, without a GUI. If you want to

virtualbox-ovf: view the screen of the VM, connect via VRDP without a password to

virtualbox-ovf: rdp://127.0.0.1:5961

==> virtualbox-ovf: Waiting 2m0s for boot...

==> virtualbox-ovf: Typing the boot command...

==> virtualbox-ovf: Using winrm communicator to connect: 127.0.0.1

==> virtualbox-ovf: Waiting for WinRM to become available...

virtualbox-ovf: WinRM connected.

==> virtualbox-ovf: #< CLIXML

==> virtualbox-ovf: <Objs Version="1.1.0.1" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/powershell/2004/04"><Obj S="progress" RefId="0"><TN RefId="0"><T>System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject</T><T>System.Object</T></TN><MS><I64 N="SourceId">1</I64><PR N="Record"><AV>Preparing modules for first use.</AV><AI>0</AI><Nil /><PI>-1</PI><PC>-1</PC><T>Completed</T><SR>-1</SR><SD> </SD></PR></MS></Obj><Obj S="progress" RefId="1"><TNRef RefId="0" /><MS><I64 N="SourceId">1</I64><PR N="Record"><AV>Preparing modules for first use.</AV><AI>0</AI><Nil /><PI>-1</PI><PC>-1</PC><T>Completed</T><SR>-1</SR><SD> </SD></PR></MS></Obj></Objs>

==> virtualbox-ovf: Connected to WinRM!

==> virtualbox-ovf: Uploading VirtualBox version info (6.0.8)

==> virtualbox-ovf: Provisioning with Powershell...

==> virtualbox-ovf: Provisioning with powershell script: ./scripts/demo.ps1

virtualbox-ovf: Checking for elevation...

virtualbox-ovf: in admin mode..

virtualbox-ovf: True

==> virtualbox-ovf: Traceback (most recent call last):

==> virtualbox-ovf: File "A:/WIN_AUTO.PY", line 5, in <module>

==> virtualbox-ovf: screenshot = pyautogui.screenshot(r"C:Users\IEUser\Desktop\file.png")

==> virtualbox-ovf: File "C:\Users\IEUser\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\pyscreeze\__init__.py", line 347, in _screenshot_win32

==> virtualbox-ovf: im = ImageGrab.grab()

==> virtualbox-ovf: File "C:\Users\IEUser\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\PIL\ImageGrab.py", line 41, in grab

==> virtualbox-ovf: size, data = grabber()

==> virtualbox-ovf: OSError: screen grab failed

==> virtualbox-ovf: Script exited with non-zero exit status: 1.Allowed exit codes are: [0]

==> virtualbox-ovf: Step "StepProvision" failed

==> virtualbox-ovf: [c] Clean up and exit, [a] abort without cleanup, or [r] retry step (build may fail even if retry succeeds)? c

==> virtualbox-ovf: Deregistering and deleting imported VM...

==> virtualbox-ovf: Deleting output directory...

Build 'virtualbox-ovf' errored: Build was cancelled.

Cleanly cancelled builds after being interrupted.

On Friday, 21 June 2019 00:09:34 UTC+5:30, Udbhav wrote:

Can you please provide the logs of the packer?

On Thu, Jun 20, 2019 at 11:37 AM Shubham Bansal <sbans...@gmail.com> wrote:

I tried this, but the logs are not very clear as of why the GUI cannot be captured with packer.
Even with the headless set as false, virtual box opens but remains stuck at login screen, while the scripts are running in the console of the host machine.

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Jordan Borean

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Jun 20, 2019, 3:40:01 PM6/20/19

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Not much you can do here, commands are run over WinRM which is run in console 0 and has no interactive console. Tools that rely on an interactive console when running over WinRM are going to have a bad time. Even if you specify headless: false that just means the actual VM Window will appear and not be hidden, this has no control over the execution on the VM side as you've noted that only the logon screen is shown.

Thanks

Jordan

Udbhav

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Jun 20, 2019, 3:40:42 PM6/20/19

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I am not sure on what can be the root cause but some general comments (I am sure you would have done this but still...)

- It looks like it failed to initialize the grabber. You might want to try running the script outside the packer to see if that works.

- Are all external dependency satisfied to run the script?

- Your path seems to be wrong "C:Users\IEUser\Desktop\file.png" shouldn't it be "C:\Users\IEUser\Desktop\file.png". General recommendation is to use Public folders when you are running some automation tasks in windows.

Thanks

Udbhav

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