Vagrant, Packer, and Puppet can be used together to create a development environment. Packer is used to build custom base boxes that include only the operating system. Vagrant uses these base boxes to create isolated virtual machines. Puppet then provisions the virtual machines by installing additional software, configuring applications, and defining infrastructure as code. This allows for consistent, reproducible development environments that match production.

1. Create your very own Development
Environment with Vagrant and Packer
… and a little bit of Puppet
Frank Stelzer https://www.flickr.com/photos/eiriknewth/238681391

2. Créateur de
Agenda
• Motivation
• Vagrant Introduction
• Base Boxes
• Creating an own Base Box with Packer
• Demo
• Fat vs. Thin Boxes
• Provisioning with Puppet

3. Créateur de
Vagrant
Puppet
Packer
Agenda
Sorry, nothing about Docker in this talk!

4. Créateur de
Who's speaking?
Frank Stelzer
Software Architect at
SensioLabs Deutschland GmbH
@frastel

5. Créateur de
Motivation
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrmoaks/8199740598/

6. Créateur de
Development Environments

7. Créateur de
I don't know my dev env, it's just working!

8. Créateur de
Development Environments
Shared Development Server
XAMPP/MAMP
Vagrant
Golden Image
some undefined VM/local system
Vagrant with Provisioning

9. Créateur de
Criteria for good development
environments
• Isolated

10. Créateur de
Development Environments
Shared Development Server
XAMPP/MAMP
Vagrant
Golden Image
some undefined VM/local system
Vagrant with Provisioning

11. Créateur de
Criteria for good development
environments
• Isolated
• Same tools for production

12. Créateur de
Development Environments
XAMPP/MAMP
Vagrant
Golden Image
some undefined VM/local system
Vagrant with Provisioning

13. Créateur de
Criteria for good development
environments
• Isolated
• Same tools for production
• Reproducible

14. Créateur de
Development Environments
Vagrant
Golden Image
some undefined VM/local system
Vagrant with Provisioning

15. Créateur de
Criteria for good development
environments
• Isolated
• Same tools for production
• Reproducible
• EASY!

16. Créateur de
Development Environments
Golden Image
Vagrant with Provisioning

17. Créateur de
VAGRANT
http://www.hashicorp.com/ http://www.vagrantup.com/

18. Créateur de
Vagrant
VirtualBox
VM
!
dev.smoov.io
Vagrant
Vagrantfile
"name =
dev.smoov.io"
project $ vagrant up
Base Box
21

19. Créateur de
!
Vagrantfile
Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
!
config.vm.box = "precise64"
config.vm.network "private_network", ip: "192.168.56.10"
config.vm.hostname = "dev.smoov.io"
!
config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |virtualbox|
virtualbox.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--name", "dev.smoov.io"]
virtualbox.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--natdnshostresolver1", "on"]
virtualbox.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--memory", "1024"]
end
!
config.ssh.keep_alive = true
config.ssh.forward_agent = true
!
end
assign provider specific configs
keep this in mind!

20. Créateur de
vagrant destroy is your friend!

21. Créateur de
Available Base Boxes
• Ubuntu Lucid 32 Bit (10.04)
• Ubuntu Lucid 64 Bit (10.04)
• Ubuntu Precise 32 Bit (12.04)
• Ubuntu Precise 64 Bit (12.04)
• https://github.com/mitchellh/vagrant/wiki/Available-Vagrant-
Boxes
• https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/vagrant/
• other inofficial userland boxes: vagrantboxes.es, puphpet.com …
What is in there!?

22. Créateur de
Native supported base boxes are not up-
to-date in the most cases
PHP 5.3
nginx 0.9
Apache 1
not node compatible
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yoshimov/13909857/
PPAs :(

23. Créateur de
Can I haz the new things please?
PHP 5.5.9
nginx 1.6
Apache 2
node!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chaosandcreations/2325239486/
PPAs not needed

24. Créateur de
Can I? Pleeeease!

25. Créateur de
Sure!

26. Créateur de
Wait until new base boxes
will be supported!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bogenfreund/556656621/

27. Créateur de
Not really!

28. Créateur de
Just build your own base box
if you need to!

29. Créateur de
… and that's now!

30. Créateur de
Packer!
http://www.hashicorp.com/ http://www.packer.io/

31. Créateur de
Follow @mitchellh for updates!

32. Créateur de
!
Base Box defined with simple JSON configuration
"builders": [
{
"guest_os_type": "Ubuntu_64",
"iso_url": "http://releases.ubuntu.com/14.04/ubuntu-­‐14.04-­‐server-­‐amd64.iso",
"shutdown_command": "echo 'vagrant' | sudo -­‐S shutdown -­‐P now",
"type": "virtualbox-­‐iso"
}
],
"post-­‐processors": [
{
"only": ["virtualbox-­‐iso"],
"type": "vagrant",
"output": "build/packer_ubuntu-­‐14.04_{{.Provider}}.box"

33. Créateur de
Provisioning - with plain shell scripts
"provisioners": [
{ […]
"script": "scripts/install.sh",
"type": "shell"
[…] }
]
# scripts/install.sh
apt-get -y update
apt-get -y -q install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential dkms nfs-common
!
# ... install VBoxGuestAdditions, prepare Vagrant user etc.
!
# install everything for Puppet3+Hiera
apt-get install -y puppet

34. Créateur de
Provisioning - with Puppet
"provisioners": [
{ […]
"type": "puppet-­‐masterless",
"manifest_file": "puppet/manifests/lamp.pp",
"module_paths": ["puppet/modules"]
[…] }
]
• Provisioning types could be mixed
• Puppet has to be installed within Shell Provisioning first

35. Créateur de
Resulting VM could be converted to a
Vagrant box or whatever
"builders": […],
"post-­‐processors": [
{
"only": ["virtualbox-­‐iso"],
"type": "vagrant",
"output": "buildpacker_ubuntu-­‐14.04_{{.Provider}}.box"
}
]

36. Créateur de
… and it comes with cool magic!

37. Créateur de
"builders": [
{
"boot_command": [
"<esc><esc><enter><wait>",
"/install/vmlinuz noapic preseed/url=http://
{{ .HTTPIP }}:{{ .HTTPPort }}/preseed.cfg <wait>",
"debian-installer=en_US auto locale=en_US kbd-
chooser/method=us <wait>",
"hostname={{ .Name }} <wait>",
"fb=false debconf/frontend=noninteractive <wait>",
"keyboard-configuration/modelcode=SKIP keyboard-
configuration/layout=USA keyboard-configuration/variant=USA
console-setup/ask_detect=false <wait>",
"initrd=/install/initrd.gz -- <enter><wait>"
],

38. Créateur de
Demo:
Generating a Base Box for
Vagrant with Packer in 3min

39. Créateur de
http://youtu.be/wgt9jUyuXVI

40. Créateur de
Base Box is generated! What's next?

41. Créateur de
Integrate it to your Vagrant setup!
vagrant box add packer_ubuntu-­‐14.04_virtualbox file://…

42. Créateur de
!
Vagrantfile
Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
!
config.vm.box =
config.vm.network "private_network", ip: "192.168.56.10"
config.vm.hostname = "dev.smoov.io"
!
config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |virtualbox|
virtualbox.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--name", "dev.smoov.io"]
virtualbox.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--natdnshostresolver1", "on"]
virtualbox.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--memory", "1024"]
end
!
config.ssh.keep_alive = true
config.ssh.forward_agent = true
!
end
"precise64""packer_ubuntu-14.04_virtualbox"

43. Créateur de
Packer + Vagrant
VirtualBox
VM
!
dev.smoov.io
Vagrant
Base BoxVagrantfile
"name =
dev.smoov.io"
project $
Packer
Base BoxVM
1
2 3
vagrant up

44. Créateur de
What to put in Base Boxes?

45. Créateur de
Everything?

46. Créateur de
Fat Base Box
Fat Base Box
included:
PHP 5
MySQL
Redis
nginx

47. Créateur de
Fat Base Box
• advantages:
• vagrant up -> ultrafast
• no internet connection needed during VM creation
• disadvantages:
• out-of-date very fast
• heavy maintenance needed
• one fat base box for every server type (webserver, database server,
search server etc.)
• … or do you want PHP to be installed on a DB node?

48. Créateur de
Fat vs. Slim Base Box
Fat Base Box
ISO
VBoxGuestAdditions
PHP 5
MySQL
Redis
nginx
Slim Base Box
ISO
VBoxGuestAdditions
+ Provisioning (Puppet)

49. Créateur de
Choose wisely according to your needs!

50. Créateur de
… but …

51. Créateur de
Slim Base Boxes should be preferred
when infrastructure changes often!

52. Créateur de
Usage
Fat Base Box
!
• no changes
• System is well known
• Golden Image way
• Admins are defining the system
Slim Base Box
• frequent changes
• System is not yet
defined
• Developers are
defining the system

53. Créateur de
Slim Base Boxes need additional
provisioning after Virtual Machine has
been installed!

54. Créateur de
Provisioning with Puppet
VM
Box
!
dev.smoov.io
Vagrant
Base BoxVagrantfile
"name =
dev.smoov.io"
project $
Packer
Base BoxVM
1
2
4Puppet
3
vagrant up

55. Créateur de
Vagrantfile
Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|
config.vm.box = "packer_ubuntu-­‐14.04_virtualbox"
# …
!
config.vm.provision :puppet do |puppet|
puppet.manifest_file = "lamp.pp"
puppet.manifests_path = "puppet/manifests"
puppet.module_path = "puppet/modules"
puppet.options = ["-­‐-­‐verbose"]
end
end
our generated Base Box from Packer
Provisioning with Puppet

56. Créateur de
Why Puppet?

57. Créateur de
Why Not?

58. Créateur de
Go for Chef or Ansible if you
want!

59. Créateur de
Puppet <3

60. Créateur de
Puppet (2) - DSL Overview
Variables
Conditionals
Facts
Modules
Classes
Templates
Defined Types

61. Créateur de
Puppet – DSL - Modules
puppet/
|-- manifests
| `-- lamp.pp
`-- modules
|-- apache2
| |-- files
| | `-- staticfile.conf
| |-- manifests
| | |-- init.pp
| | |-- mod.pp
| | `-- vhost.pp
| `-- templates
| `-- vhost.erb
|-- composer
| `-- manifests
| `-- init.pp
puppet/
|…
`-- modules
|…
`-- php5
`-- manifests
`-- init.pp

62. Créateur de
Puppet DSL - Class
Definition:
class composer(
$dir = '/usr/local/bin'
) {
exec { 'composer_install':
name => 'curl -­‐s getcomposer.org/installer | php',
cwd => $dir,
creates => '/usr/local/bin/composer.phar',
path => '/usr/bin'
}
# ...
}
Usage:
class { 'composer':
dir => $composer_dir
}

63. Créateur de
Puppet DSL - Defined Type
Definition:
define apache2::vhost(
$server_name = $name,
$priority = '50',
$document_root = '/var/www',
$index_file = 'index.php',
$service = apache2:params:service
) {
# ...
}
Usage:
apache2::vhost { 'dev.smoov.io':
priority => 20,
document_root => '/var/www/smoovio/web',
index_file => 'app_dev.php'
}

64. Créateur de
Puppet DSL - Manifest
# manifests/dev.pp
# ...
class { 'apache2': }
-­‐>
apache2::vhost { 'dev.smoov.io':
priority => 20,
document_root => '/var/www/smoovio/web',
index_file => 'app_dev.php'
}
-­‐>class { 'php5': }
-­‐>class { 'composer': }
# ...

65. Créateur de
Infrastructure as Code

66. Créateur de
To sum up
• with Vagrant you can create Virtual Machines bases on
Base Boxes very easy
• Packer adds the possibility to create your own Base
Box for those VMs
• It's up to you if you create a Fat or a Thin Base Box
• After creation a Virtual Machine could be provisioned
with Puppet (or place your preferred provisioning tool
here)

67. Créateur de
Need more Information or Help!?
http://sensiolabs.de/workshops/vagrant/
packer build <your own base box>.json … now!
Frank Stelzer
@frastel