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Castrohenge
Asked: 2017-01-10 08:50:27 +0800 CST

Packer - AWS Windows 2016 SysPrep returns exit code 1

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When attempting to SysPrep an AWS Windows Server 2016 instance using Packer the following error is thrown:

Build 'amazon-ebs' errored: Script exited with non-zero exit status: 1. Allowed exit codes are: [0]

I'm calling the SysprepInstance.ps1 script as specified on http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/ec2launch.html#ec2launch-sysprep.

amazon-web-services windows-server-2016 packer sysprep

2 Answers

  1. Castrohenge's answer set me on the right path, but I preferred to pass the '-NoShutdown' switch to SysprepInstance.ps1 to accomplish the same goal.

    C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\SysprepInstance.ps1 -NoShutdown

    Also keep in mind that features requiring restart can lock up sysprep and will fail to report back to packer. To solve that I simply use the 'restart' provisioner in packer before sysprep.

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  2. The issue was caused by the fact the SysprepInstance.ps1 script shutdown the instance, using the following command:

    # Finally, perform sysprep.
Start-Process -FilePath $sysprepPath -ArgumentList ("/oobe /shutdown /generalize `"/unattend:{0}`"" -f $answerFilePath) -Wait -NoNewWindow

    I resolved this by modifying the SysprepInstance.ps1 before running it, as follows:

    $sysPrepInstanceFile = "C:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-Windows\Launch\Scripts\SysprepInstance.ps1"

(Get-Content $sysPrepInstanceFile -Verbose).Replace("/shutdown ", "") | Set-Content $sysPrepInstanceFile -Verbose
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