NIC does not connect when template is used

[legionpheonix]

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Terraform

3.2.4

Terraform Provider

2.14.2

VMware vSphere

7.0.3.01100

Description

The network interface does not come up automatically when I try to create a VM via Terraform.

Affected Resources or Data Sources

Version vCenter 7.0.3.01100.

The template itself definitely works and has the network adapter enabled—I verified this by cloning the VM manually through vCenter.
The problem only occurs when I deploy with Terraform. I’m attaching the Ubuntu 24.04 deployment project files.
I’ve even tried injecting boot-time parameters via extra_config, and within the network_interface block I’ve set connected = true (as well as every other suggestion I found online), but the NIC still launches without the “Connect At Power On” and “Connected” checkboxes ticked.
Could someone help me figure out what’s wrong with my configuration? Either I’m missing something obvious, or there really is a bug here.

Terraform Configuration

main.tf.txt
terraform.tfvars.txt
variables.tf.txt
versions.tf.txt

Similar problem, but the solution below did not help.
#951

[legionpheonix]

It turned out that Ubuntu 24.04 did not have the hwclock console utility.
Therefore, the script did not work and the network card did not come up.

This is very strange and is not documented anywhere on the Internet. And also in the log /var/log/vmware-imc/toolsDeployPkg.log it is not even mentioned.

In the template you need to run:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y util-linux-extra

After that, the network card comes up correctly.

Question. How are we going to deal with this? Because this is not normal. In fact, this is a bug to some extent.

[tenthirtyam]

This would be an issue in the template, not the provider. You could certainly build the template with the Packer plugin to include this if needed.