/boot2docker-vagrant-box

boot2docker Vagrant box, done right

Primary LanguageShell

boot2docker Vagrant box, done right

motivation

The upstream boot2docker only supports VirtualBox and imho its setup is a bit more convoluted than it could be. So this project was born with the aim of supporting additional hypervisors (starting with Parallels) and simplify the installation and usage process by having it distributable as a plain simple Vagrant box.

check Vagrant's Atlas for box release details.

usage

pre-requisites

notes about hypervisors

  • if you are using VirtualBox you don't need to do anything extra as it is the default Vagrant hypervisor.
  • If you are using Parallels Desktop you need to have installed the vagrant-parallels provider which you can do by just doing vagrant plugin install vagrant-parallels. Then just add --provider parallels to the vagrant up invocations bellow.

running

1st time only

vagrant init AntonioMeireles/boot2docker-vagrant-box

power up

vagrant up

next, we need to populate a few environment vars in the running shell, so that our local docker client knows what we are up to.

We have two options:

  • the manual way...

    source .env

  • the automated way

    adding in your shell an hook to check if the boot2docker VM is up, and if so, populate the env vars automatically.

    In my case as i use zsh (and zprezto) i have the follwing bits in ~/.zshrc (context code added for clarity) ...

    function setDockerEnvVars {
    local target="/Users/am/Vagrant/boot2docker/.env"
    if [[ -a ${target} ]]; then
        source ${target}
    else
        unset DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY
        unset DOCKER_HOST
        unset DOCKER_CERT_PATH
    fi
}

# tweak title bar
function precmd {
    # vcs_info
    # Put the string "hostname::/full/directory/path" in the title bar:
    echo -ne "\e]2;$(hostname -s)::$PWD\a"
    # Put the parentdir/currentdir in the tab
    echo -ne "\e]1;$PWD:h:t/$PWD:t\a"
}

function set_running_app {
    printf "\e]1; $PWD:t:$(history $HISTCMD | cut -b7- ) \a"
}

function preexec {
    setDockerEnvVars
    set_running_app
}

function postexec {
    set_running_app
}

function startDocker {
    (cd ~am/Vagrant/boot2docker ; vagrant up 1>/dev/null)
    setDockerEnvVars
}

function stopDocker {
    (cd ~am/Vagrant/boot2docker ; vagrant halt )
}

function docker {
    [ ! -n "${DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY+x}" ] && startDocker
    /usr/local/bin/docker "$@"
}
    > achieving the same goal with **bash** is left as an exercise to the reader.

then *just* do whatever you want to with docker :smile:

#### troubleshouting
If on `vagrant up` you hit NFS errors please make sure your */etc/sudoers* file
is as said [here](https://docs.vagrantup.com/v2/synced-folders/nfs.html) in
the official Vagrant documentation.

#### allocated resources

By default this **boot2docker** box will run with 1 CPU and 1024MB of memory
allocated to it. You can change the number of running CPUs via the `B2D_CPUS`
environment variable and the memory allocated to it (in MB) via the `B2D_MEM`
environment variable.

Ence `B2D_CPUS=2 B2D_MEM=2048 vagrant up` would start **boot2docker** with
2GB of memory and 2 virtual CPUS allocated to it.

#### passing aditional arguments to the docker daemon

You can use the `B2D_EXTRA_ARGS` environment variable to pass aditional
arguments to the docker daemon.

So, `B2D_EXTRA_ARGS="--dns 192.168.1.2" vagrant up` would tell the Docker daemon to use that specific DNS server.

#### updates and data persistence

To update to a newer version of this **boot2docker** box, and per
[general vagrant behavior](http://docs.vagrantup.com/v2/boxes/versioning.html),
you'll need to run `vagrant destroy`, `vagrant box update` and  `vagrant up`. When destroying the existing box boot2docker persistent data will be saved
inside `.boot2docker` in the Vagrantfile directory and later restored into the newly provisioned up-to-date box.

## TODO
*(in no particular order)*

- add **Parallel Tools** support (will be simpler ence [this](https://github.com/boot2docker/boot2docker/issues/755) upstream *issue* gets fixed) for *native* shared folder support.

## (re)building or modifying the box locally
### pre-requisites
  * **[Packer](http://www.packer.io)** (at least version 0.6.1 for Parallels)
  * **[Parallels Desktop](http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/)** and **[SDK](http://www.parallels.com/download/pvsdk/)**.

```sh
make

Thanks

###projects without those this wouldn't possible

Licensing

CC0 To the extent possible under law, the person who associated CC0 with this work has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.