Exploring Vagrant: Provisioning in Detail - Part 3

Provisioning a virtual machine using Vagrant involves setting up and configuring the software, packages, and settings within the virtual machine to match your project's requirements.

Provisioning can be done manually by logging into the VM and making the necessary changes, or it can be automated using configuration management tools like Ansible, Chef, Puppet or through shell scripts

1 . Create or Open the Vagrantfile

Navigate to your project directory and create a Vagrantfile if you don't already have one, or open your existing Vagrantfile in a text editor

2. Configure the Box and Provider

Set up the base box and provider configurations, as well as any other settings you need for your virtual machine.

# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# vi: set ft=ruby :

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.box = "ubuntu/jammy64"
  config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
    vb.memory = 2048
    vb.cpus = 2
  end 
end

3 . Provisioning

3.1 Provisioning with Inline Script

Use the config.vm.provision block to specify the inline provisioning script. You can use Shell scripting directly within the Vagrantfile for simple provisioning tasks

$shell = <<-SCRIPT
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install -y apache2
SCRIPT


Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.box = "ubuntu/jammy64"
  config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
    vb.memory = 2048
    vb.cpus = 2
  end 
  config.vm.provision "shell", inline: $shell 
end

3.2 Provisioning with external scripts

The shell provisioner can also take an option specifying a path to a shell script on the host machine. Vagrant will then upload this script into the guest and execute it.

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.box = "ubuntu/jammy64"
  config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
    vb.memory = 2048
    vb.cpus = 2
  end 
  config.vm.provision "shell", path:"script.sh" 
end

#!/bin/bash 
# this is the script.sh file 

sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install -y apache2

Approach (3.1 and 3.2 ) are suitable for small provisioning tasks, but for more complex configurations and multiple provisioners, it's recommended to use separate provisioning scripts or tools like Ansible, Chef, or Puppet.

3.3 Provisioning with Ansible

The provisioner can be also configured for Ansible provisioning

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.box = "ubuntu/jammy64"
  config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
    vb.memory = 2048
    vb.cpus = 2
  end 
  config.vm.provision :ansible do|ansible| 
    ansible.playbook = "playbook.yml"
  end 
end

---
- name: Installing apache2/httpd package through Ansible via Vagrant 
  hosts: all 
  become: true 
  tasks:
    - name: Install apache httpd   
      ansible.builtin.apt:
        name: apache2
        state: present 

4 . Start the Vagrant Environment

Run the following command to start the Vagrant environment and provision the virtual machine :

vagrant up

Vagrant will create the virtual machine, apply the provisioning steps defined in the config.vm.provision block, and then launch the machine.

5 . Access the Virtual Machine

After provisioning, you can access the virtual machine via SSH using:

vagrant ssh

You can customize the provisioning script's to include any software installations, configuration changes, and other setup tasks required for your project.