Vagrant makes managing a virtual machine’s (VMs) lifecycle easy by providing simple commands. It lets developers focus on developing rather than plumbing work. Below is a high-level overview of Vagrant with links for further reading.

• standardization - configure once, use everywhere
  • windows
    • If you need rsync then go with
      • Cygwin
      • MinGW
    • otherwise can make do with
      • putty
  • mac
  • linux

• reduces overhead - manage VM lifecycle with commands

   vagrant up
   vagrant suspend
   vagrant halt
   vagrant destroy
   vagrant reload
   vagrant status
   vagrant init
   vagrant box list
   vagrant box remove <name-of-box>
   vagrant box add <name-of-box>
   vagrant ssh
   vagrant provision
  

• wide support
  • out of the box support for the following providers
    • VirtualBox
    • Hyper-V
      • compatible with Windows 8.1 only
      • must turn it on as a windows feature
    • Docker
    • VMWare
  • remote clouds
    • AWS EC2
    • Rackspace
  • provisioning tools
    • shell scripts
      • ideal for new users who want to get up and running quickly
    • Ansible
    • Chef
      • vagrant does not automatically install provisioners for chef and puppet
      • need to install it in the base box
    • Puppet
      • vagrant does not automatically install provisioners for chef and puppet
      • need to install it in the base box
      • can use to install services like
        • databases
        • web servers
    • Salt
    • Docker
      • automatically installs Docker
      • can use puppet (installing services) + docker (contain your application) provisioner together
• share - easy to distribute VMs
  • share box file
    • you can upload to HashiCorp’s Atlas
    • share via any other means
  • share vagrant
    • share your vagrant environment
      • SSH sharing
        • remote into your vagrant box
      • HTTP sharing
        • share your webserver links to clients for feedback
• provides high-level interface to simplify working with VMs
  • synced folders
    • automatically sync files to and from guest machines
    • /vagrant is the shared directory
  • provisioning
    • automatically install software during vagrant up phase
    • use configuration (a.k.a provisioning) tools to automate installation
    • specify configuration using vagrantfile
  • networking
    • exposes high-level networking interface to help you
      • forward ports
      • connecting to a public network
      • creating a private network

Steps for getting started with Vagrant

1. Download and install Vagrant
2. Setup Project
3. Add a box
4. Vagrant Up

Testing a Box

vagrant box add my-box /path/to/the/new.box

vagrant init my-box

vagrant up

Vagrant Push

• deploy code residing in same directory as vagrant file to a remote server
• through
  • SFTP
  • Local Exec
    • your own rsync script

Terms

Vagrantfile

• file to describe how to configure and provision machines
• specifies type of machine required for project
• uses ruby syntax
  • ruby knowledge not required, just simple variable assignments
• portable

Boxes

• the base image of a virtual machine
• can be downloaded from a local file, custom URL or HashiCorp’s Atlas Box Catalog

Base Boxes

• contains the bare minimum for vagrant to function
• used as a clean starting point for building new environments
• are provider specific

Box file format

• contains two components
  1. Box File
     • required
     • compressed (tar, tar.gz, zip)
     • specific to a single provider (eg. VirtualBox)
  2. Box Catalog Metadata
     • optional but recommended
     • JSON document
     • provide support for multiple providers and versioning

HashiCorp’s Atlas box catalog

• free public boxes available for download
• lets you host your own public or private boxes
  • benefits
    • support for versioning, pushing updates, analytics and more

Provisioners

• lets you automate installation software
• and alter configuration