Setting a static IP Address to an Virtual Machine from OVF Template

Question

I'm using Terraform's vSphere Provider. I have a local OVF template that I'm trying to deploy a VM from. I wish to set a static IP address for the soon-to-be-deployed VM, but Terraform keeps complaining

• "Argument named ipv4_address is not expected here."
• "Argument named ipv4_netmask is not expected here."
• "Argument named "ipv4_gateway` is not expected here."

DHCP is not an option so I have to set it manually. Terraform gives an option to allocate IPs manually, so what can I do?

This is the Template I'm using:

data "vsphere_ovf_vm_template" "ovfRemote" {
  name                 = "foo"
  disk_provisioning    = "thick"
  datastore_id         = data.vsphere_datastore.datastore.id
  host_system_id       = data.vsphere_host.host.id
  resource_pool_id     = data.vsphere_resource_pool.default.id
  local_ovf_path       = "/path/to/ovf"
  ip_protocol          = "IPV4"
  ip_allocation_policy = "STATIC_MANUAL"
  ovf_network_map = {
    "Network" : data.vsphere_network.network.id
  }
}

and here's the Virtual Machine's I'm trying to create:

resource "vsphere_virtual_machine" "vmFromLocalOvf" {
  name             = "terraform-using-ovf-template"
  datacenter_id    = data.vsphere_datacenter.datacenter.id
  datastore_id     = data.vsphere_datastore.datastore.id
  host_system_id   = data.vsphere_host.host.id
  resource_pool_id = data.vsphere_resource_pool.default.id

  wait_for_guest_net_timeout = 0
  wait_for_guest_ip_timeout  = 0

  num_cpus = data.vsphere_ovf_vm_template.ovfRemote.num_cpus
  memory   = data.vsphere_ovf_vm_template.ovfRemote.memory
  guest_id = data.vsphere_ovf_vm_template.ovfRemote.guest_id

  ovf_deploy {
    allow_unverified_ssl_cert = false
    enable_hidden_properties  = false
    local_ovf_path            = data.vsphere_ovf_vm_template.ovfRemote.local_ovf_path
    disk_provisioning         = data.vsphere_ovf_vm_template.ovfRemote.disk_provisioning
    ip_protocol               = data.vsphere_ovf_vm_template.ovfRemote.ip_protocol
    ip_allocation_policy      = data.vsphere_ovf_vm_template.ovfRemote.ip_allocation_policy
    ovf_network_map           = data.vsphere_ovf_vm_template.ovfRemote.ovf_network_map
  }

  #### HERE IS THE PROBLEM I'M FACING ###
  # With the provider 'vsphere_virtual_machine' I should be able to specify
  # a network interface. Specifically, I'm interested in setting a 
  #     * ipv4_address
  #     * ipv4_netmask
  #     * ipv4_gateway

  network_interface {
    ipv4_address = "11.22.33.44"
    ipv4_netmask = 24
  }

  ipv4_gateway = "55.66.77.88"

Errors:

$ terraform plan
╷
│ Error: Unsupported argument
│ 
│   on main.tf line 82, in resource "vsphere_virtual_machine" "vmFromLocalOvf":
│   82:     ipv4_address = "10.112.128.22"
│ 
│ An argument named "ipv4_address" is not expected here.
╵
╷
│ Error: Unsupported argument
│ 
│   on main.tf line 83, in resource "vsphere_virtual_machine" "vmFromLocalOvf":
│   83:     ipv4_netmask = 24
│ 
│ An argument named "ipv4_netmask" is not expected here.
╵
╷
│ Error: Unsupported argument
│ 
│   on main.tf line 86, in resource "vsphere_virtual_machine" "vmFromLocalOvf":
│   86:   ipv4_gateway = "10.112.128.1"
│ 
│ An argument named "ipv4_gateway" is not expected here.

Answer 1

To clone and customize a VM from local OVF/OVA template you have to use the properties that the OVF/OVA template supports. These properties are defined inside the OVF (XML) file.

To set these properties in Terraform, use the vapp block inside your vsphere_virtual_machine resource, e. g.:

vapp {
  properties = {
    "guestinfo.ipaddress"    = "172.16.11.101",
    "guestinfo.netmask"      = "255.255.255.0",
    "guestinfo.gateway"      = "172.16.11.1"
  }
}

There also is a full example in the docs you already linked.