Base Vagrantfile for Enterprise Linux

This repository contains a Vagrantfile for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Community Enterprise Operating System (CentOS). The Vagrantfile is designed to be included by other Vagrantfiles and takes care of the following tasks:

Configures machine time zone based on host time zone
Configures /etc/hosts on machines so that they can look up each other
Creates and deploys an SSH key so that machines can log in to each other (useful for Ansible)
Registers and unregisters machines at Red Hat (RHEL only)

Requirements

This Vagrantfile has been tested with Vagrant 2.0.0. It requires the following plugins which it installs automatically as needed:

Usage

This Vagrantfile is designed to be included by other Vagrantfiles. Assuming your project is located in the same directory where you checked out el-vagrant.

load '../el-vagrant/Vagrantfile'

Change the path accordingly if your project resides in a different location.

Subscription Manager Configuration (RHEL only)

RHEL machines need a valid subscription for installing additional software packages. El-vagrant automatically registers machines at Red Hat if the Suscription Manager is installed and the following variables are present in the project Vagrantfile or user Vagrantfile (usually in ~/.vagrant.d/):

$rhsm_username (required): Username used for registering machines with Red Hat Subscription Management
$rhsm_password (required): Password used for registering machines with Red Hat Subscription Management
$rhsm_pool: ID of a subscription pool attach to the machines. Auto-attachment is used if this variable is not set.

Example:

$rhsm_username = 'me@example.org'
$rhsm_password = 'mypassword'
$rhsm_pool = '2a2a2a2a2a2a2a2a2a2a2a2a2a2a2a2a'

El-vagrant registers machines with system names of the form vagrant-<hostname>-<machinename> so that they are easily recognizable in Red Hat Subscription Management. Where <hostname> is the name of the host running Vagrant and <machinename> is the name of the Vagrant machine (guest).

RHEL Box

Since RHEL boxes can't be freely distributed you have to build one yourself. The rhel-vagrant-box repository provides a script for creating RHEL boxes for the Libvirt provider.

Features

Hostname Resolution

El-vagrant configures hostname resolution with the help of the vagrant-hostmanager plugin. Vagrant-hostmanager manages entries in the /etc/hosts files for all running machines so that they can look up each other.
If you need hostname resolution via DNS you can install dnsmasq in your Vagrant machines. It reads /etc/hosts by default and makes its entries available through DNS.

SSH Key Distribution

El-vagrant creates an SSH key in the directory in which your Vagrantfile resides and deploys this key so that the root and vagrant users can log into other machines of the same project as root and vagrant. Among other things this setup is useful for running Ansible on your Vagrant machines with or without privilege escalation (sudo).

appuio / el-vagrant