How can I use Packer to build an image in Azure with a large file?

I want to build an image in Azure on Windows 2019 with a large file. The file contains the artifacts I need to create my image. All was going well getting the VM going until I tried to copy a 200MB file to the host. That was slated to take 11 hours. That's when I found out about WinRM and its file copy limitations.

I then found out about the http_directory parameter to copy a file to the host over http, but that is not available with the azure-arm builder.

I then saw that I can use SSH. The issue is I cannot start with the ssh provisioner and switch to the WinRM provisioner to run my ps1 configuration script. I read I can start with ssh, take an image and then start it up with WinRM. Not ideal.

I came across this software: "https://github.com/winfsp/sshfs-win" - but I am unaware of a way for a provisioned host to directly access the packer host it was provisioned by.

I came across winrmcp but that seems old and not likely to work if I could ever figure out how to get it going.

I am leaning towards blob storage, but that seems like a cop-out.

What is the best way to start a Windows 2019 Server, copy a 200MB file to it and run a ps1 script?

You can try to copy your file using Ansible provisioner. It is much faster. When I was copying a 10MB file, file provisioner took around 4 minutes but Ansible provisioner only 15 seconds.

Packer file:

source "azure-arm" "example" {
  use_azure_cli_auth                = true
  os_type                           = "Windows"
  communicator                      = "winrm"
  image_offer                       = "WindowsServer"
  image_publisher                   = "MicrosoftWindowsServer"
  image_sku                         = "2016-Datacenter"
  managed_image_name                = "image"
  managed_image_resource_group_name = "rg"
  location                          = "westeurope"
  vm_size                           = "Standard_D2_v2"

  winrm_insecure = true
  winrm_timeout  = "5m"
  winrm_use_ssl  = true
  winrm_username = "packer"
}

build {
  sources = ["sources.azure-arm.example"]

  provisioner "ansible" {
    playbook_file = "./copy.yml"
    extra_arguments = [
      "-e", "ansible_winrm_server_cert_validation=ignore",
      "-e", "ansible_winrm_transport=ntlm"
    ]
    user      = "packer"
    use_proxy = false
  }
}

Ansible playbook - copy.yml:

---
- name: Copy file to Windows host
  hosts: all

  tasks:
    - name: Copy file
      win_copy:
        src: ./10MB.bin
        dest: C:\10MB.bin