Big Sur hosts with Fusion. Is vmnet-dhcpd-vmnet8.leases file still used?

[trodemaster]

Is it expected that the /var/db/vmware/vmnet-dhcpd-vmnet8.leases file be populated with guest os dhcp leases when the host is Big Sur macOS 11? The packer tool expects to parse this file to get the IP of created VMs before the OS responds in any way. What I'm seeing is that file is empty even if the guest VM is reachable with a dhcp provided IP. Depending on how it's supposed to work in the new hypervisor.framework style I'll open a bug with VMware Fusion or packer. Please Advise, Blake

[ivivanov]

Leases file is back in Fusion 12.2.

[trodemaster]

I have confirmed that fusion 12.2 is working with packer 1.7.2 on macOS 11.6 for me today. The packer code still searches the leases file for IPs they just added the newer source as well. 

[AntonioMeireles]

@ivivanov 

It's progress! thanks for your hard work. Quick question - now that the old behaviour is somewhat back is it 'safe' to use plain static IPs, right ?

thanks in advance!  

[ivivanov]

To put it this way - currently we do not have any plans to make any more changes in this area. That said, we can always get an unexpected critical issue, or another easter egg by Apple, that might force us to reconsider.

[matthias_dietz]

HI @trodemaster 

can't confirm that. Have completely removed all preference files from VMware Fusion 12.2 according to KB1017838 to be sure, that no remaining files from older installation are left.

I have created a vmnet2, let VMware fusion auto-create the IP range and tried to build a fedora VM using packer and this simplified template:

{
  "builders": [
    {
      "boot_command": [
        "<tab> ",
        "inst.ks=http://{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/{{user `ks_path`}} loglevel=10 ",
        "biosdevname=0 ",
        "net.ifnames=0 ",
        "<enter>"
      ],
      "boot_wait": "5s",
      "cpus": "2",
      "disk_adapter_type": "scsi",
      "disk_size": "10240",
      "disk_type_id": "0",
      "guest_os_type": "fedora64Guest",
      "http_directory": "/path/to/ks",
      "iso_checksum": "...",
      "iso_url": "/path/to/fedora-server-netinst.iso",
      "network": "vmnet2",
      "network_adapter_type": "e1000",
      "memory": "2048",
      "output_directory": "/path/to/output/directory}",
      "shutdown_command": "****",
	  "ssh..."
      "type": "vmware-iso",
      "vm_name": "test"
    }
  ]
}

Packer kicks the VM in Fusion, after enabling the network card the boot process stucks in bringing up nm-run.service. Via PACKER_LOG=1 I cannot see whether or not packer is looking up DHCP leases.

How did you get packer with 12.2 running?

[Update] Seems to be a packer issue, see here: https://github.com/hashicorp/packer/issues/11380

Cheers,
Matthias