Current session guides through Vagrant. Shows some tips and tricks and targeted to software developers. Practical activities can be found here: https://github.com/akranga/devops-hackathon-1

1. Vagrant hackaton
Session Activities can be found here:
https://github.com/akranga/devops-hackathon-1

2. Vagrant
- Vagrant will mange VM for you
- Describe VM in configuration file
- Can put configuration in Source Control
- You can allow other to contribute
- You have full control on VM

3. Vagrant
- Ruby powered command line interface to
VM hosted in your Computer
- Supports multiple VM providers
(VirtualBox by default)
- Allows to create reproducible and
portable environments

4. Vagrant
- Supports run of Multi-VM environments
- Allows to create/restore snapshots of VM
- Allows package environment
- Environment configuration stored in file
(you can put it in git)

5. Installing Vagrant
- Download and install latest VirtualBox for your OS:
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
- Download and install latest vagrant for your OS:
http://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html
- Update PATH Environment System Variable. Add entries:
- VirtualBox location
- C:Program FilesOracleVirtualBox
- Vagrant location
- C:DevOpsvagrantbin
- Might require extra directories
- C:DevOpsvagrantembeddedbin
- C:DevOpsvagrantembeddedmingwbin
- C:DevOpsvagrantembeddedgemsbin

6. Vagrant Components
- Command Line Interface
- Vagrantfile
- Boxes
- Synced Folder
- Provisioning
- Multi Machine
- Providers

7. Command Line Interface
Vagrant basic operating model through CLI vagrant command
Running any vagrant subcommand with --help or –h prints context help
$ vagrant init
$ vagrant up
$ vagrant halt
$ vagrant reload
$ vagrant provision
$ vagrant destroy
$ vagrant ssh
$ vagrant ssh-config
Create initial Vagrant configuratoin
Start or create VM if not exists
Power down VM
Restart VM (useful when you change config)
Run Chef or Puppet scripts
Destroy VM as it never existed
Connect to VM if it is running
Prints SSH configuration

8. Command Line Interface
shell
$ vagrant box list
$ vagrant box add
$ vagrant box remove
$ vagrant box repackage
$ vagrant box outdated
$ vagrant box update
List all vagrant environments on your PC
Add basebox record to vagrant registry
Remove basebox (doesn’t terminate VM)
Make a snapshot of your VM
Deprecates the VM
Checks and updates a VM if it is out-dated
Additional commands to manage your vagrant environments

9. Vagrantfile
All VM configuration stored in Ruby DSL file. This file can be placed in git.
When you run vagrant up. Vagrant will check following directories.
./Vagrantfile
/home/mitchellh/projects/foo/Vagrantfile
/home/mitchellh/projects/Vagrantfile
/home/mitchellh/Vagrantfile
/home/Vagrantfile
/Vagrantfile
VAGRANT_CWD to change directory where Vagrant is looking for configuration

10. Boxes
Vagrantfile
Vagrant.configure "2" do |config|
config.vm.box = “my-vm"
config.vm.box_url = “box-url"
end
Minimal Vagrantfile looks like this
Vagrant file contains API versioning.

11. Vagrantfile (cont)
Vagrantfile
Vagrant.configure "2" do |config|
config.vm.box = “my-vm"
config.vm.box_url = “box-url“
(1..3).each do |i|
config.vm.define "slave-#{i}" do |slave|
slave.vm.provision "shell",
inline: "echo hello from slave #{i}"
end
end
end
How many machines will
run this file?

12. Modifying scripts
config.vm – to mange VM parameters
Vagrantfile
config.vm.box
config.vm.check_update
config.vm.box_url
config.vm.box_version
config.vm.box.hostname
config.vm.provider
cofnig.vm.synced_folder
Name to be associated with box
By default true. Can disable update checks
URL of the VM to download
Version of the basebox file
Hostname of the VM
By default VirtualBox. Can be other
By default current host dir mounted as
/Vagrant. Can map additional directory
inside VM

13. Modifying scripts
config.ssh – to customize SSH behavior
Vagrantfile
config.ssh.username
config.ssh.password
config.ssh.private_key_path
config.ssh.insert_key
config.ssh.shell
By default vagrant
No pass by default
Path to your SSH key. By default
/home/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key
By default true. Can disable to use pass
Shell to open when ssh. By default bash -l

14. Boxes
To create a VM Vagrant needs a basebox file which is typically
Just Enough Operating System.
Baseboxes can be downloaded from Community websites
www.vagrantbox.es Offsite for Vagrant boxes
http://opscode.github.io/bento/ Vagrant boxes optimized for Chef
You can create your own box using
- Packer (http://packer.io)
- Packer templates for Chef optimized boxes can be found:
https://github.com/opscode/bento

15. Synced Folder
To enable Vagrant to sync files at your Host and Guest machine
By default mapped directory: /vagrant
Permissions: all files in synced folder are 0777

16. Vagrant Plugins
Vagrant is extremely pluggable.
You can add/costomize almost everything in Vagrant (such as add
VMWare, AWS or Docker providers), Chef or Puppet provisioning etc.
Vagrant has tons of plugins. Official hosted here:
https://github.com/mitchellh/vagrant/tree/master/plugins
Dog Food: API for Vagrant plugins:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food
Most useful Plugins:
- vagrant-omnibus: Chef for Vagrant VMs
- vagrant-cachier: Cache for packages (can be reused across VMs)
- vagrant-berkshelf: Enable Chef cookbook dependency mechanism

17. Vagrant plugins command
CLI to manage vagrant plugins.
Will be installed in /home/.vagrant.d/gems
Shell
$ vagrant plugin install
$ vagrant plugin list
$ vagrant plugin uninstall
$ vagrant plugin update
Install vagrant plugin
List of installed plugins
Erase plugin
Check plugin and update with newer version

18. Activity 1
Run a vagrant box.

19. Activity 1
Go to /activity1 directory
1. Create a vagrant box file:
$ vagrant init vagrant-hackaton http://opscode-vm-
bento.s3.amazonaws.com/vagrant/vmware/opscode_ubuntu-14.04_chef-
provisionerless.box
2. Run command:
This will create a Vagrant configuration which is pointed to URL.
This is a good manner to specify Valid URL so vagrant config can be
repeatable out of box
$ vagrant up
This will start download image from Internet. Please spare our bandwidth
and terminate this process (CTRL+C). We will add image from our local disk

20. Activity 1
3. Check if nothing installed
$ vagrant box list
5. Spin up VM:
Vagrant should return no images. Otherwise we might overwrite one with
this activity. Or you might want to change name of VM by modifying
Vagrantfile
4. Add box manually with link to local file
$ vagrant box add vagrant-hackaton PATH-TO-BOX/opscode_ubuntu-
14.04_chef-provisionerless.box
$ vagrant up
6. Connect via SSH
$ vagrant ssh

21. Activity 1
7. Type command
$ vagrant destroy
8. Destroy VM
in VM
$ uptime
$ exit

22. Activity 2
Customize VM attributes

23. Activity 2
Go to /activity2 directory
1. Run command
$ vagrant up
This will bring VM to life. Vagrant will reuse basebox from local file because
activity2 VM has same name as VM from activty1
2. In the VM run command
You should get some HTML text on console. Before exiting SSH sesion
in VM
$ sudo apt-get install –y apache2 curl
$ http://localhost
$ exit

24. Activity 2
3. Modify Vagrantfile
This will instruct Vagrant to use cache on your Host machine all software
installed inside VM (vagrant requires plugin vagrant-cachier)
4. Modify Vagrantfile as per instructions
Vagrantfile: TODO2
config.vm.network :forwarded_port, guest: XXXXX, host: YYYYY
Vagrantfile: TODO1
config.cache.auto_detect = true
Vagrantfile: TODO3
config.vm.synced_folder "webapp/", "/var/www"
5. Modify Vagrantfile as per instructions

25. Activity 2
5. after Vagrantfile changes we need to raload VM
$ vagrant reload
6. With your browser open: http://localhost:80801
You will get something like this (on the right)
This is allright. We need to create a HTML
7. Create file webapp/index.html
webapp/index.html
<html>
<head><title>Hello World!</title><head>
<body><h1>Hello Vagrant!</h1></body
</html>

26. Activity 2
No needs to reload VM (directory will be synced automagically )
8. Refresh your browser at: http://localhost:80801
You will get something like this (on the right)
7. Destroy VM
$ vagrant destroy

27. Activity 3
Provision DB Server

28. Activity 3
Go to /activity3 directory
1. Run command
$ vagrant up
Vagrant will fail with
Vagrant:
* Unknown configuration section 'berkshelf'.
* Unknown configuration section 'omnibus'.
2. You need to install additional plugins
$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-berkshelf
$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-omnibus
$ vagrant up

29. Activity 3
Go to /activity3 directory
1. Run command
$ vagrant up
Vagrantfile has extra configuration that says it will use Chef (Omnibus
packaged) and Berkshelf to download cookbooks. But it doesn’t have plugins
and it will fail:
Vagrant:
* Unknown configuration section 'berkshelf'.
* Unknown configuration section 'omnibus'.
2. Check if plugins installed and install plugins
$ vagrant plugin list
$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-berkshelf
$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-omnibus
$ vagrant up

30. Activity 3
Go to /activity3 directory
1. Run command
$ vagrant up
Vagrantfile has extra configuration that says it will use Chef (Omnibus
packaged) and Berkshelf to download cookbooks. But it doesn’t have plugins
and it will fail:
Vagrant:
* Unknown configuration section 'berkshelf'.
* Unknown configuration section 'omnibus'.
2. Check if plugins installed and install plugins
$ vagrant plugin list
$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-berkshelf
$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-omnibus
$ vagrant up

31. Retrospective

32. How many VMs will this file run?
Vagrantfile
Vagrant.configure "2" do |config|
config.vm.box = “my-vm"
config.vm.box_url = “box-url“
(1..3).each do |i|
config.vm.define "slave-#{i}" do |slave|
slave.vm.provision "shell",
inline: "echo hello from slave #{i}"
end
end
end

33. Synced folder tricks
Vagrantfile
require 'rbconfig'
is_windows = (RbConfig::CONFIG['host_os'] =~ /mswin|mingw|cygwin/)
Vagrant.configure "2" do |config|
config.vm.box = “my-vm"
config.vm.box_url = “box-url“
config.vm.synced_folder
"webapp/",
"/var/www/html",
nfs: is_windows
end
Synced folder in windows synchronizes in one direction. To enable it to
synchronize in both directions we need to say that host system is
Windows by setting parameter nfs to true

34. Synced folder tricks
Vagrantfile
require 'rbconfig'
is_windows = (RbConfig::CONFIG['host_os'] =~ /mswin|mingw|cygwin/)
Vagrant.configure "2" do |config|
config.vm.box = “my-vm"
config.vm.box_url = “box-url“
config.vm.synced_folder
"webapp/",
"/var/www/html",
nfs: is_windows
end
Synced folder in windows synchronizes in one direction. To enable it to
synchronize in both directions we need to say that host system is
Windows by setting parameter nfs to true

35. Synced folder tricks
If Windows host machine you cannot create symlinks in synced directory
However there is a workaround.
1. Add vm customization parameter to Vagrantfile
Vagrantfile
config.vm.customize ["setextradata", :id,
"VBoxInternal2/SharedFoldersEnableSymlinksCreate/v-root", "1"] if
is_windows
2. Run vagrant up as user Administrator

36. Shell
$ git clone https://github.com/opscode/bento.git
$ cd bento/packer
bento/packer $ packer build ubuntu-13.10-amd64.json
Creating VM from scratch

37. Shell
bento/packer $ packer build
-only=virtualbox
-var-file=variables.json
ubuntu-13.10-amd64.json
Packer with extra params
variables.json
{
"chef_version": "latest",
"mirror": "../builds/iso/"
}