AHMED ZBYR

AHMED ZBYR

Biker, EV Enthusiast

Test Kitchen (kitchen-vagrant) can provision disposable Microsoft Windows Server virtual machines on a Linux or macOS workstation using VirtualBox, Vagrant, and WinRM. This allows you to develop and test Windows Chef cookbooks locally before uploading them to a Chef Server.

This guide walks through:

  1. Installing the vagrant-winrm plugin.
  2. Installing HashiCorp Packer and building a Windows Server 2012 R2 evaluation Vagrant .box image from the boxcutter/windows templates.
  3. Importing the Windows box into Vagrant and configuring .kitchen.yml to run kitchen test.

Step 1: Install the vagrant-winrm Plugin

For Vagrant and Test Kitchen to communicate with a Windows guest over WinRM, install the vagrant-winrm plugin:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-winrm

If vagrant-winrm is missing when .kitchen.yml targets a Windows platform (windows-*), kitchen list will raise:

>>>>>> ------Exception-------
>>>>>> Class: Kitchen::UserError
>>>>>> Message: WinRM Transport requires the vagrant-winrm Vagrant plugin to properly communicate with this Vagrant VM. Please install this plugin with: `vagrant plugin install vagrant-winrm' and try again.

(Note: Vagrant 1.6+ includes native WinRM communicator support, though older releases of kitchen-vagrant explicitly check for the vagrant-winrm plugin.)

Step 2: Install HashiCorp Packer

To build a clean Windows Server Vagrant base box from an official Microsoft Evaluation ISO, we use HashiCorp Packer and the boxcutter/windows Packer templates.

  1. Download the Packer binary archive from releases.hashicorp.com/packer: 
    cd ~/work
wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/packer/0.10.1/packer_0.10.1_linux_amd64.zip
  2. Extract the packer binary and install it into /usr/local/sbin/ (or /usr/local/bin/): 
    unzip packer_0.10.1_linux_amd64.zip
sudo cp packer /usr/local/sbin/
packer --version
# 0.10.1

Step 3: Build a Windows Server 2012 R2 Vagrant Box with boxcutter/windows

  1. Clone the boxcutter/windows repository: 
    cd ~/work
git clone https://github.com/boxcutter/windows.git
cd windows

    The repository includes Packer JSON templates for Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 R2 (eval-win2012r2-standard.json), Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 evaluation images.

  2. Build the VirtualBox image for eval-win2012r2-standard using make: 
    make virtualbox/eval-win2012r2-standard

What the Packer Build Does

Packer automates the entire Windows Server installation and image preparation:

  • Downloads the Windows Server 2012 R2 Evaluation ISO and VirtualBox Guest Additions ISO.
  • Creates a virtual floppy image containing Autounattend.xml and post-install setup scripts (install-winrm.cmd, fixnetwork.ps1, disablewinupdate.bat, powerconfig.bat).
  • Boots the VirtualBox VM, performs an unattended Windows installation, configures the vagrant user account, enables WinRM, installs VirtualBox Guest Additions, defragments and zeros free disk space (sdelete), and exports the compressed .box artifact to box/virtualbox/eval-win2012r2-standard-nocm-1.0.4.box.
==> virtualbox-iso: Creating floppy disk...
    virtualbox-iso: Copying: floppy/eval-win2012r2-standard/Autounattend.xml
    virtualbox-iso: Copying: floppy/install-winrm.cmd
==> virtualbox-iso: Creating virtual machine...
==> virtualbox-iso: Starting the virtual machine...
==> virtualbox-iso: Waiting for WinRM to become available...
==> virtualbox-iso: Connected to WinRM!
==> virtualbox-iso: Provisioning with shell script: script/vagrant.bat
==> virtualbox-iso: Provisioning with shell script: script/vmtool.bat
==> virtualbox-iso: Provisioning with shell script: script/clean.bat
==> virtualbox-iso: Provisioning with shell script: script/ultradefrag.bat
==> virtualbox-iso: Provisioning with shell script: script/sdelete.bat

(Tip: If you prefer a pre-built Windows evaluation box instead of building from ISO locally, you can also pull boxes directly from Vagrant Cloud such as gusztavvargadr/windows-server.)

Step 4: Register the Windows Box in Vagrant

Once the Packer build completes, add the generated .box file to your local Vagrant box inventory under the name windows-2012r2:

cd ~/work/windows/box/virtualbox
vagrant box add windows-2012r2 eval-win2012r2-standard-nocm-1.0.4.box
vagrant box list

Step 5: Configure .kitchen.yml and Run kitchen test

In your Chef cookbook, update .kitchen.yml to reference the windows-2012r2 platform. Because the platform name begins with windows-, Test Kitchen automatically selects the winrm transport:

---
driver:
  name: vagrant

provisioner:
  name: chef_zero

platforms:
  - name: windows-2012r2

suites:
  - name: default
    run_list:
      - recipe[starter-windows-cookbook::default]

Verify that Test Kitchen recognizes the Windows instance and selects the Winrm transport:

kitchen list

Instance        Driver   Provisioner  Verifier  Transport  Last Action
windows-2012r2  Vagrant  ChefZero     Busser    Winrm      <Not Created>

Run kitchen converge or kitchen test to boot the Windows Server VM, install Chef Client inside the guest, and converge your Windows recipe:

kitchen test

References

You May Also Enjoy