Understanding of how to install software on a Windows OS.Basic Powershell understanding (you need to know what it is and how to open it).Internet connection (fun! you get to download a few things).Modern multi-core Intel/AMD CPU (4+ cores is best).

16GB RAM (you won’t be able to do much if you have less than this).

Hyper-V Disabled (it makes some system changes that break VirtualBox in most cases).

For the instructions here, I am using a simple Windows 10 machine and the software available today. Note: There are a lot of platforms and starting points for this combination of features and software. Before You Get Started With Vagrant and Virtualbox. You'll have a highly functional lab for software development up fast with some added agility for prototyping infrastructure choices too. Simply use Vagrant and VirtualBox together. No longer do you have to wait to build a physical machine, then wait to download ISO images of the virtualization stuff, operating systems, software packages etc. Why Use Vagrant and Virtualbox?īuilding a software prototyping environment (aka lab) is far simpler than ever before. In summary, this is a time-saving tool for standing up VMs faster, configuring them, adding packages to VMs, or integrating your virtual platforms with tools like Ansible. It allows for some fundamental integration and automation with platforms like VirtualBox, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware, etc.

Vagrantis a time-saving open source ( MIT) tool from our friends at HashiCorp. For advanced users, it also has some command line, advanced networking capabilities, and integrates nicely with Vagrant. Your virtual machines will be hosted in this on top of your base OS, sharing its resources. VirtualBoxis an open source ( GPL v2) virtualization platform that works on almost any base OS. In this blog, we give an overview of VirtualBox and Vagrant, how they can combine to form a virtual prototyping environment, and instructions for setting up your first lab. But if you use Vagrant and VirtualBox, you can virtualize and save time. Virtualization can be time-consuming, especially in open source.

How to use virtualbox to code