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+---
+title: Vagrant rocks
+layout: post
+category: misc
+---
+
+h2. tl;dr
+
+I've been toying with "vagrant":http://vagrantup.com/ lately, and it *really rocks*. You should definitly gave it a try. If you're only looking for some resources to get started with it, go there:
+
+ * "introduction":http://vagrantup.com/docs/index.html
+ * "google group":http://groups.google.com/group/vagrant-up
+
+h2. What is Vagrant
+
+"Vagrant is a tool for building and distributing virtualized development environments." This sentence summarize perfectly what it is.
+
+The idea is to use "Chef":http://www.opscode.com/chef on top of "VirtualBox":http://www.virtualbox.org/ to deploy a VM like you would deploy a server in your production environment.
+
+I won't go in details to describe Chef and VirtualBox, but here is a quick reminder. Chef is a framework to deploy infrastructure. It's in ruby, it uses *cookbooks* to describe how to deploy stuff, and VirtualBox is a virtualization software from -Sun- Oracle.
+
+bq. A little disclaimer. I don't use Chef outside from vagrant, so I may say/do some stupid things. The aim of this tutorial is not about writing a recipe for Chef, but to show what you can do thanks to Chef.  So Don't hesitate to correct me in the comments if I'm doing some utterly stupid things.
+
+h2. The basic
+
+To install vagrant, you'll need ruby and virtualbox. You have the basic instruction detailed "here":http://vagrantup.com/docs/getting-started/index.html. This will explain how to install vagrant and how to fetch a _base_ image.
+
+h3. Creating a first project
+
+You'll probably want to start creating a new project now. For this tutorial, I'll create an image for "presque":https://github.com/franckcuny/presque.
+
+bc.. mkdir presque
+vagrant init
+
+p. This will create a new image for your project, and create a new file in your directory: _Vagrantfile_. Modify this file to make it looks like this:
+
+<script src="https://gist.github.com/705569.js?file=ruby"></script>
+
+This instructions will:
+
+ * tell vagrant to use the image named _base_ (a lucid32 image by default)
+ * to use chef in mode _solo_
+ * the recipes will be in a directory named _cookbooks_
+ * the main recipe will be named _vagrant_main_
+ * to forward local HTTP port 4000 to 5000 on the VM
+
+h3. My recipes 
+
+Now we need to create or use some recipes. First we create our _cookbooks_ directory:
+
+bc.. mkdir cookbooks
+mkdir -p cookbooks/vagran_main/recipes
+
+p. We need to add some cookbooks. You will find them on "github":https://github.com/opscode/cookbooks. Copy the following cookbooks inside the _cookbooks_ repository:
+
+ * apt: instruction on how to use apt
+ * ubuntu: this one manages the sources and execute _apt-get update_
+ * build-essential: install the build-essential package
+ * git: install git
+ * perl: configure CPAN
+ * runit: will be used to monitor redis and our web application
+
+Edit _vagrant_main/recipes/default.rb_ to add them:
+
+<script
+src="https://gist.github.com/705569.js?file=default.rb"></script>
+
+If the VM is already started, you can do
+
+bc.. vagrant provision
+
+p. or
+
+bc.. vagrant up
+
+p. This will deploy the previous cookbooks on the VM. When it's done, you can log on:
+
+bc.. vagrant ssh
+
+p. You'll need to additional recipe: one for redis; one for presque. You'll find them on my "github account":http://github.com/franckcuny/cookbooks/. Copy the two recipes inside your cookbook directory, and execute @vagrant provision@ to install them.
+
+If everything works fine, you should be able to start using presque. Test this:
+
+<script
+src="https://gist.github.com/705569.js?file=test-presque.sh"></script>
+
+If everything is fine, you can shut down the VM:
+
+bc.. vagrant halt
+
+h3. Mounting directories
+
+Instead of pulling from github, you may prefer to mount a local directory on the VM. For this, you'll need to modifiy the _Vagrantfile_ to add this:
+
+bc.. config.vm.share_folder "v-code", "/deployment/code", "~/code/perl5"
+config.vm.share_folder "v-data", "/deployment/data", "~/code/data"
+
+p. This will mount your local directory _perl5_ and _data_ under _/deployment/{code,data}_ on the VM. So now you can edit your files localy and they will be updated on the VM at the same time.
+
+h2. and now the awesome part
+
+If you're like me, you may end up with the need to have multiple VMs which will talk to each others. Common scenarios are a VM with the website, and another one with the DB, or one VM with a bunch of API webservices and another with Workers who need to interact with the VM. Rejoice, this kind of stuff is also handle by vagrant!
+
+Replace the content of the previous _Vagrantfile_ with this:
+
+<script
+src="https://gist.github.com/705569.js?file=multiples%20vm"></script>
+
+In this configuration, we're creating two VMs, _presque_ and _workers_. You'll need to create two new cookbooks, one for each new VM (vagrant_presque, with the same content as vagrant_main, and vagrant_workers, with only the recipe for ubuntu and the instruction to install curl). Once it's done, boot the two VMs:
+
+bc.. vagrant up presque
+vagrant up workers
+
+p. Now let's log on the worker VM
+
+bc.. $ vagrant ssh workers
+vagrant@vagrantup:~$ curl http://192.168.1.10:5000/q/foo
+{"error":"no job"}
+
+p. and voila.
+
+h2. Conclusion
+
+I've started to use vagrant for all my new personal projects and for most of my work stuff. I really enjoy using this, as it's easy to create a cookbook or add one, it's easy to setup a multi vm environment, you can share a configuration amongst your coworkers, etc.
+
+If you haven't started yet to use a VM for your own projects, you really should give it a try, or use a simple VirtualBox setup. If you want to read more on the subject, this two blog posts may be relevant to your interest:
+
+ * "Why you should be using virtualisation":http://morethanseven.net/2010/11/04/Why-you-should-be-using-virtualisation.html
+ * "nothingmuch setup":http://blog.woobling.org/2010/10/headless-virtualbox.html
+