Creating base box from scratch for Vagrant

At vagrantbox.es, you can find boxes for many flavours like CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian etc.

How ever, you might require a flavour of OS that is not available packaged for you already.
In such a case, you might want to package it for use with Vagrant.
I needed Oracle Enterprise Linux Box.

Following is a step by step approach to create a base box for Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.7 64 bit version.


Creating a VM on VirtualBox

Step 1: Get the ISO file from which we will install the Oracle Enterprise Linux.

Step 2: Create your virtual machine on VirtualBox.

  Create a new Virtual Machine 
      Type: VMDK
      Name : oel57
      Base memory size: 512 MB, Memory Space Maximum 40 GB
      Enable Host I/O cache

Step 3: Attach the installer ISO to cdrom: Settings -> Storage -> CD ROM

Step 4: Start the virtual machine and follow the OS installer instructions.

    Section1: Initialize drive and erase data: yes
    Section2: Disable IPv6, leave IPv4 enabled with DHCP
              Configure network: yes
              Set hostname to vagrantoel5 & Domain to vagrant.com
    Section3: Root password: vagrant
    Section4: Set the apprpriate time zone
    Section5: Customize the package installation
              Deselect everything and Dial-up networking, Text-based internet
              Select Base, development tools & libraries
              Remove GUI - GTK, KDE, X11
    Section6: After reboot
              Disable firewall
              Run Services: Disable cups

This will install a lot of unwanted packages. Try to reduce it to minimum. Reboot the VM after installation.


Configuring the new VM

Step 5: Before, you move on, check if eth0 has been assigned an IP

      ifconfig
      inet address: 10.0.2.15 ...
      ....

Step 6: Installing VirtualBox Guest Additions

      From VirtualBox/VM Menu -> Devices -> Install Guest Additions
      On the running VM:
        mkdir /media/VirtualBoxGuestAdditions
        mount -r /dev/cdrom /media/VirtualBoxGuestAdditions
        cd /media/VirtualBoxGuestAdditions
        sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
        reboot

Step 7: Restart VM


Easing working on VM

Step 11: Create vagrant account

      groupadd admin
      useradd -G admin vagrant
      passwd vagrant
      # choose "vagrant" as the password

Step 12: Changes to visudo for vagrant usage as root

    visudo changes:
    
       %admin          ALL=(ALL)       NOPASSWD: ALL
    
       Defaults    env_keep = .. SSH_AUTH_SOCK PATH <-- add in last line
    
       # Defaults   !visiblepw   <--- Comment it
       # Defaults    requiretty   <--- Comment it

Step 13: Basic steps for vagrant usage as root

      su - vagrant
      echo ‘export PATH=$PATH:/usr/sbin:/sbin’ >> .bashrc
      exit
    
      /etc/init.d/sudo restart

Package required for vagrant usage

Login as vagrant user and do the following

Step 13: Ruby
           
             Install RVM

        curl -s https://rvm.beginrescueend.com/install/rvm -o rvm-installer
        chmod +x rvm-installer
        sudo ./rvm-installer --version latest
        exit the shell and relogin as vagrant user

           
            Additional installs required

        yum install -y gcc-c++ patch readline readline-devel 
             zlib zlib-devel libyaml-devel
             libffi-devel openssl-devel make bzip2 autoconf 
             automake libtool bison iconv-devel

           
             Install Ruby

        sudo rvm install 1.9.2

Package required for vagrant usage

Login as vagrant user and do the following

Step 14: Setup yum repository

      Install Oracle repository
        cd /etc/yum.repos.d
        wget http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-el5.repo
        Change enabled=0 to enabled=1
    
      Install EPEL repo
        sudo rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5Server/x86_64/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
 

Step 15: Puppet, Chef & SSH

     Install Puppet: sudo yum install puppet
     Install Chef :sudo gem install chef --no-rdoc --no-ri
     Install SSH

Allow automatic ssh for vagrant

Step 16: Add vagrant insecure public key

     mkdir .ssh 
     chmod 755 .ssh 
     wget --no-check-certificate 
     https://raw.github.com/mitchellh/vagrant/master/keys/vagrant.pub
     cat vagrant.pub > .ssh/authorized_keys 
     chmod 644 .ssh/authorized_keys

Step 17: Cleanup and shutdown virtual machine

     sudo /sbin/ifconfig
     write down MAC address of eth0 (eg. 08:00:27:60:AE:41)

     sudo yum clean headers packages dbcache expire-cache
     shutdown now

Finally!!: Packaging Base Box

Step 18: Package vagrant box

     # Use the same name as there in VirtualBox
     vagrant package --base oel57
    
     # It creates a file called package.box in the same directory
     # Rename it for distribution & download
     mv package.box to oel57.box
 

Step 19: Try using it

     vagrant box add oel57 oel57.box
     mkdir test_environment
     cd test_environment
     vagrant init oel57
     vagrant up
     vagrant ssh

Taste your base box !!

Step 20: Add the base box to vagrant repository

     vagrant box add oel57 oel57.box
    
     vagrant box list  <--- outputs all the boxes available for use
    
        lucid64
        oel57
        puppet-rhel-6-64

Step 21: Try using it

     mkdir test_environment
     cd test_environment
     vagrant init oel57
     vagrant up
     vagrant ssh