Vagrant allows users to define reproducible and testable machine configurations using configuration files. It supports various operating systems and virtualization providers. The document outlines the basics of using Vagrant, including adding base boxes, creating Vagrantfiles to define configurations, provisioning machines, and commonly used commands. It is useful for developers who need consistent environments or who configure machines for others.

1. Defining testable Machine
Configurations with
Vagrant
30-40 minutes
Updated in June 2014 falmeida1988@gmail.com

2. What?
Vagrant is used for building reproducible and testable machine configurations.
In other words, coding your infrastructure.
You just define a base box (e.g. Ubuntu 12.04) and all configurations
(depending on your provider), packages to install and so on.
You install a VM provider (e.g. VirtualBox), run vagrant up and you’re good
to go.

3. Why?
● Machine configurations become a liability when you need to ensure your
software is correct (did it break because of your environment or because the
code is actually faulty?)
● It’s hard to make sure everyone in a team has the exact same machine setup.
● Sometimes it takes careful configuration to make something work and you want
to avoid having to do it for every new machine you work on.
● The need to be able to remotely configure (sometimes complex) infrastructures
in the cloud.

4. Who is it good for?
For those who:
● need to make sure their entire team has the exact same environment set
up so
● are responsible for configuring and setting up environments for others and
want to optimize the process;
● don’t want to waste time applying the same hacks or complex configuration
steps for each thew machine they use (common scenario).

5. Technical details
● Supported Hosts
○ Windows, Linux, MacOS
● Supported Guests
○ Everything *nix and Windows
● Supported Virtualization Providers
○ VirtualBox
○ VMWare (Workstation and Fusion)
○ Hyper V
○ AWS
○ Others (via plugins)

6. Your first Vagrantfile
This is a simple Vagrantfile that uses one of the most common boxes found
in VagrantCloud. You need to run vagrant box add
hashicorp/precise32 prior to running it.
Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|
config.vm.box = "hashicorp/precise32"
config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |v|
v.gui = true
end
end
(This setup will get you a bare-bones Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Virtualbox machine.)

7. Basic Workflow
This is the simplest possible example of how to get from zero to sixty using Vagrant
(after you’ve installed Vagrant itself and a simple provider like VirtualBox).
● run vagrant box add to add a base box definition to your collection
● create a new directory
● cd into that directory and run vagrant init; this will create a blank
Vagrantfile in that directory
● edit said Vagrantfile adding options for your box (using one of the boxes
you’ve added via vagrant box add as base)
● run vagrant up
If there were no errors, you should have a new VirtualBox instance running (note that it may have no
GUI - you can use the Vagrantfiles shown in previous slides).

8. Basic provisioning
Provisioning just means installing packages and/or further configuring your
newly-created box.
For example, if you create an Ubuntu box, you might want to have Apache web
server installed beforehand:
Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|
# … other configurations
config.vm.provision "shell",inline: "apt-get update"
config.vm.provision "shell",inline: "apt-get install apache2 --assume-
yes"
end

9. Advanced provisioning
Vagrant supports a large number of third-party provisioners which can be used to
further configure your machine.
Some of the most commonly-used provisioners (apart from inline scripting as in the
previous slide) are as follows:
● Files (for example, to share environment between host and guest)
● Puppet
● Chef
● CFEngine
● Ansible
● Salt

10. Useful commands
● vagrant up - Creates a VM and starts it (or just start it if it’s already
installed)
● vagrant provision - Run any provisioning you might have set up for
the current box.
● vagrant reload - Restarts the VM taking into account modifications
made to Vagrantfile
● vagrant box list - Show all available boxes (i.e., boxes you have
added).

11. Heads-up I
● In order to use some useful commands like vagrant ssh (used to ssh
into your vagrant box), you need some unix commands (in this case, ssh).
This would seem to be an issue if you’re running Windows, but you have
many options here: some are Installing Git (it comes with a few utils) and
using Cygwin or MinGW.
● Starting from version 1.6, Vagrant has added full support for Windows
Guests. (Note that Support for Windows Hosts have been supported since
earlier versions.)

12. Heads-up II
● Most base (Linux) boxes have no Desktop Environment (like Gnome or
XFCE) installed by default. This means that, if you want to access your
Linux box via a GUI (menus and buttons), you have to install it yourself.
● (Setting v.gui = true in the config file does not install a Desktop
Environment for your VM!)
For a basic Ubuntu Virtualbox box with a GUI, see This bit of code on
GitHub.

13. References
● Official Vagrant Docs
● Summary of Commands
● Vagrant Provisioning