Added @SwampDragons' suggestion to the `CommHost()` implementation for the vmware builders which uses the communicator config's `Config.Port()` function to determine the communication port-number independent of the configured protocol.

builder/vmware/common/driver_esx5.go

@@ -438,10 +438,7 @@ func (ESX5Driver) UpdateVMX(_, password string, port int, data map[string]string
 
 func (d *ESX5Driver) CommHost(state multistep.StateBag) (string, error) {
 	sshc := state.Get("sshConfig").(*SSHConfig).Comm
-	port := sshc.SSHPort
-	if sshc.Type == "winrm" {
-		port = sshc.WinRMPort
-	}
+	port := sshc.Port()
 
 	if address, ok := state.GetOk("vm_address"); ok {
 		return address.(string), nil

builder/vmware/common/ssh.go

@@ -14,15 +14,10 @@ func CommHost(config *SSHConfig) func(multistep.StateBag) (string, error) {
 		driver := state.Get("driver").(Driver)
 		comm := config.Comm
 
-		// Figure out which protocol we're using to communicate with the
-		// guest, and determine the correct port to handshake with.
-		port := comm.SSHPort
-		if comm.SSHHost != "" {
-			return comm.SSHHost, nil
-		}
-		if comm.Type == "winrm" {
-			port = comm.WinRMPort
-		}
+		// Snag the port from the communicator config. This way we can use it
+		// to perform a 3-way handshake with all of the hosts we suspect in
+		// order to determine which one of the hosts is the correct one.
+		port := comm.Port()
 
 		// Get the list of potential addresses that the guest might use.
 		hosts, err := driver.PotentialGuestIP(state)
@@ -36,9 +31,10 @@ func CommHost(config *SSHConfig) func(multistep.StateBag) (string, error) {
 			return "", errors.New("IP is blank")
 		}
 
-		// Iterate through our list of addresses and dial each one. This way we
-		// can dial up each one to see which lease is actually correct and has
-		// ssh up.
+		// Iterate through our list of addresses and dial up each one similar to
+		// a really inefficient port-scan. This way we can determine which of
+		// the leases that we've parsed was the correct one and actually has our
+		// target ssh/winrm service bound to a tcp port.
 		for index, host := range hosts {
 			conn, err := net.Dial("tcp", fmt.Sprintf("%s:%d", host, port))
 
@@ -53,7 +49,7 @@ func CommHost(config *SSHConfig) func(multistep.StateBag) (string, error) {
 			}
 
 			// Otherwise we need to iterate to the next entry and keep hoping.
-			log.Printf("Ignoring entry %d at %s:%d due to host being down.", index, host, port)
+			log.Printf("Skipping lease entry #%d due to being unable to connect to the host (%s) with tcp port (%d).", 1+index, host, port)
 		}
 
 		return "", errors.New("Host is not up")