The document discusses the use of Vagrant and Chef to create reproducible and portable work environments for development, highlighting the advantages of reduced setup time and improved efficiency. It details the architecture, components, and setup processes for both tools while emphasizing the importance of version control and collaboration in development environments. Additionally, it touches on the benefits of integrating DevOps practices to enhance cooperation between developers and system operators.

1. Reproducible and Portable
Work Environments with
Vagrant and Chef

2. About Me
• 33 years old, almost married
• From Karlsruhe, Germany
• Studied Computer Science
• Hobbies: guitar, climbing,
cycling, travel, photography
• Works in Phnom Penh for 3 months
• Working with TYPO3

4. Outline
• Motivation
• Introducing Vagrant & Chef
• Vagrant „Hands-On“
• Advanced usage

6. Motivation
• Internal project
• Estimated development time ~2 years
• Approx. 15 developers
• 2-day sprints, every second week
• 4 developers per sprint

7. Motivation
Observations
• Setting up dev environment takes > 1 day
– More than ½ of the sprint time!
• Developers spent too much time on setup
• Always needed physical server for testing

8. Solution: Vagrant Boxes
Provisioning 2 virtual machines...
• ...each with an extended LAMP stack*)
• ...with 4 different projects
takes less than 15 minutes
*) including RabbitMQ, Solr, Git, Composer, tons of PHP modules...

9. Technological Stack
VirtualBox
Free open source virtualization tool
Chef
Automation tool for
Configuration Management
Vagrant
“Remote control” for VirtualBox

11. What is Vagrant?
• Building tool for portable work environments
• Tool for distributing work environments
• Written in Ruby
• Open Source
• Build upon well-established tools

12. Vagrant Components
• Vagrant Box
• Vagrantfile
• Provisioners
• Providers

13. Vagrant Boxes
• Pre-installed base images
• Used as base layer for all further provisioning
• Many different boxes available online:

14. The Vagrantfile
• Marks root directory of Vagrant project
• Describes what Vagrant box to use
• Describes settings of box (e.g. network)
• Triggers the provisioning of box (using Chef)

15. Provisioners
• Configures your Vagrant box by
– Installing packages and software
– Configuration and starting of services
• Multiple provisioners available
• Run once the box is booted

16. Providers
• Describe in which virtualization environment
to provision your machines
• Multiple providers available
– VirtualBox
– VMWare
– Amazon AWS

18. What is Chef?
• Configuration Management automation tool
• Written in Ruby
• „Code your desired system state“
• Put system state into version control
• Relies on a client / server architecture
– Or use chef solo without a server

19. Chef Architecture

20. Chef Architecture

22. Using chef-solo
• mount cookbooks directory into your box
config.vm.synced_folder "./chef", "/var/chef"
config.vm.synced_folder "./home", "/var/
vagrant-home"
• run chef-solo in your box
config.vm.provision :shell do |s|
s.inline = "sudo chef-solo -c /var/chef/
solo.rb -j /var/vagrant-home/config.json"
end

23. The solo.rb File
• Define some paths:
file_cache_path "/var/chef-cache"
cookbook_path ["/var/chef/cookbooks”]
data_bag_path "/var/chef/data_bags"
role_path "/var/chef/roles"

24. The config.json File
• Define cookbook runlist:
{"run_list" : ["recipe[cookbook_name]"]}
• Further configuration in config.json
overwrites defaults in cookbooks
node['key1']['key2']

25. Chef Provisioning Alternatives
• Different ways for Chef provisioning
– Mounting Cookbooks and use chef-solo
– Copy Cookbooks into box and use chef-solo
– Use Chef client in box and Chef server

26. Overview
2
Chef Cookbooks
/home/vagrant/chef
mounted/copied into
OR taken from chef server
Vagrant Box
4
uses
cookbooks
triggers
chef
3
remote
controlls
1

28. Provisioning Activity
Provisioning Activity
Provision Projects
Configuration
Management
Booting Box
Set up Box
Chef,
Git
Vagrant,
Chef
Vagrant,
VirtualBox
Vagrant

29. Set Up Box
1. Install VirtualBox & Vagrant
2. Add a box
vagrant box add box_name http://box_url
1. Create a first Vagrantfile
mkdir vagrant
cd vagrant
vagrant init

30. Set up & Boot the Box
4. Use the box in your Vagrantfile
Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
config.vm.box = "box_name"
end
5. Boot your machine
vagrant up
6. ssh into your machine
vagrant ssh

31. Versioning and Distribution
• Remember: „Everything should be put into
Version Control!“
• Vagrantfile can easily be put into any VCS
• Distributing an environment is as easy as
git clone git@github.com:my/vagrant.git
cd vagrant
vagrant up

32. Daily Vagrant Usage
• Start the box
vagrant up
• Stop the box
Vagrant halt
• Suspend the box
vagrant suspend
• Resume the box
vagrant resume

34. Multiple Boxes for Multiple Projects
PROs
- Easy to set up
- Can have different systems in a box
Vagrant Box
Project 1
Vagrant Box
Project 2
CONs
- Have multiple Boxes running at the
same time consumes resources
Vagrant Box
Project 3

35. Multiple Projects in one Box
PROs
- Less ressources required
Vagrant Box
Project 1
Project 2
Project 3
CONs
- No easy way to set up
- Longer provisioning time
- Bigger boxes

36. Identical Copy of Server
server is provisioned
using Chef Client
Chef Client
Chef Server
Chef Cookbooks
mounted/copied into
OR taken from chef server
provisioned
using same cookboks
Identical Copy of Server
as Vagrant Box

37. Vagrant & Chef for CI / CD
• Set up the whole deployment chain locally
• Use tools like Jenkins inside your boxes
• Provision the projects on Jenkins with Chef

38. DevOps
• Tools like Vagrant and Chef bring Developers
and system operators closer together
• Learn from each other
• Use each other‘s tools for problem solving

41. Summary
• Vagrant is a great tool for portable boxes
• Chef can help you manage your configuration
• „Infrastructure as Code“
• Same environment on dev and live system
• DevOps brings devs and admins together