In one of the previous posts I explained how to create a custom box running Windows.
So in this post I’ll show how you can create your custom box running Linux – both CentOS and Ubuntu.
I won’t use Packer in this example – just regular VirtualBox and shell commands.
Here’re some basic steps to create a custom vagrant box with Linux:
1. Download suitable ISO from official site or any other source if you will;
2. Create VirtualBox VM and disable USB and Audio;
3. Install updates and necessary software (“Development Tools”, nano wget ncdu tree ssmtp lynx htop net-tools telnet unzip);
4. If you want to run Puppet or Cher you need to install clients, but I prefer Ansible for small infrastructures;
5. Create administrator user “vagrant” with well-known password “vagrant” during or after the installation;
6. Allow password-less sudo by adding with visudo “vagrant ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL”
7. Disable UseDNS options in /etc/ssh/sshd_config if it’s present (in Ubuntu and CentOS they’re not enabled by default)
8. Disable requiretty using visudo (relevant for CentOS 7);
9. Download well-known ssh key and set correct permissions for the Open-SSH:
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mkdir -p /home/vagrant/.ssh chmod 0700 /home/vagrant/.ssh wget https://raw.github.com/mitchellh/vagrant/master/keys/vagrant.pub -O /home/vagrant/.ssh/authorized_keys chmod 0600 /home/vagrant/.ssh/authorized_keys chown -R vagrant /home/vagrant/.ssh |
10. Enable AuthorizedKeysFile in /etc/ssh/sshd_config (uncomment AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys string; however it’s already been done in CentOS7);
11. Install VirtualBox guest tools process for:
CentOS6:
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yum install -y gcc kernel-devel perl (it's not necessary if you have already installed "Development Tools") mkdir /media/cdrom/ mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom/ /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run modinfo vboxguest |
CentOS7:
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yum install -y gcc kernel-devel bzip2 mkdir /media/cdrom/ mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom/ /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run modinfo vboxguest |
Ubuntu:
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apt-get install make gcc mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom/ /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run modinfo vboxguest |
12. Prepare hard drive for compression:
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dd if=/dev/zero of=/EMPTY bs=1M rm -f /EMPTY |
13. Create box from VM:
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vagrant package --base %VMName% --output %BoxName%.box |
14. Import box to local Vagrant installation:
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vagrant box add %BoxName% %BoxName%.box --provider virtualbox |
15. Test the created box:
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vagrant init %BoxName% vagrant up --provider virtualbox |
16. Upload the box to the Atlas repo or any other places;
17. Download & test box on some other Vagrant host.