Exploring Vagrant: Starting with Virtual Box - Part 2

Starting a Vagrant project from scratch involves a series of steps to set up a new development environment using Vagrant. Below is a step-by-step guide to help you start a Vagrant project:

Step 1: Install Required Software:

Before you begin, make sure you have the following software installed on your system:

1. Virtualization software (VirtualBox)
2. Vagrant: Download and install it from the Vagrant website.
3. Vagrant Boxes: Select your specific box from the Vagrant Cloud

Step 2: Create a Project Directory:

Create a new directory where you want to set up your Vagrant project. You can name it whatever you prefer.

Step 3: Initialize the Vagrant Project:

Navigate to the project directory in your terminal and run the following command to initialize a new Vagrant project.

vagrant init

To Start with a prefigured Vagrantfile following command for a specific box

vagrant init box_name

Replace box_name with the name of the base box you want to use (e.g., hashicorp/bionic64 for an Ubuntu-based box).

This will create a Vagrantfile in your project directory.

Step 4: Configure the Vagrantfile:

Open the generated Vagrantfile in a text editor. Customize it according to your project's needs. Here's a simple example of a Vagrantfile that sets up a VirtualBox-based environment:

To write your own VirtualBox Vagrantfile configurations , please refer to the instructions provided here

# -*- 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
    vb.gui = true
  end 
end

In this example, you specify the base box (ubuntu/jammy64), set some VirtualBox-specific settings.

Step 5: Start the Vagrant Environment:

In your terminal, navigate to the project directory and run the following command to start the Vagrant environment:

vagrant up

This command creates and provisions the virtual machine according to the settings in your Vagrantfile. If this is the first time you're using a particular base box, Vagrant will download it.

On Mac/Linux System, the successfully downloaded boxes are located at:

~/.vagrant.d/boxes

and unsuccessful boxes are located at:

~/.vagrant.d/tmp

On Windows systems it is located under the Users folder:

C:\Users\%userprofile%\.vagrant.d\boxes

Use vboxmanage list vms to list all the virtual machines

Step 6 : Access the Virtual Machine:

You can SSH into the virtual machine using the following command:

vagrant ssh

Step 8: Stop and Destroy the Environment:

When you're done with the virtual machine, you can halt it using:

vagrant halt

To completely remove the virtual machine and its resources, use:

vagrant destroy