Notes for vagrant

Vagrant is a tool that makes it easy to create and use virtual machines. To use it, you need to install:

• Install virtualbox
• Install vagrant
• Install git (well, ok, you don't need this for vagrant, but you should have it, anyway.)

Once you have this all done, rehash and then try running this on the command line:

vagrant --version

If this works, you're good.

Using Vagrant

Every vagrant VM needs a file called Vagrantfile that defines the box. The simplest one is:

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|

  # SSH forwarding: See https://help.github.com/articles/using-ssh-agent-forwarding
  config.ssh.forward_agent = true

  # update chef before running chef
  config.vm.provision :shell, :inline => "gem install chef --version 11.6.0.rc2 --no-rdoc --no-ri --conservative"

  #########################################################################
  # Virtualbox configuration - the default provider for running a local VM
  #########################################################################
  
  config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |vb, override|

    # The Virtualbox image
    override.vm.box = "precise64"
    override.vm.box_url = "http://files.vagrantup.com/precise64.box"

    # Port forwarding details
  
    # IPython Notebook
    override.vm.network :forwarded_port, host: 8888, guest: 8888
    override.vm.network :forwarded_port, host: 8000, guest: 8000

    config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/vagrant"
    
    # You can increase the default amount of memory used by your VM by
    # adjusting this value below (in MB) and reprovisioning.
    vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--memory", "384"]
  end

When you start a new project you can use this as an example. The main thing this does is:

• map the current directory on the host machine (".") to the "/vagrant" directory on the guest

Helpful commands

Here are a few commands that will come in handy.

vagrant up

This will start the box for the first time.

vagrant ssh

This will let you log into the box

vagrant halt

This shuts the box down.