VMware Homelab Automation with Vagrant

Introduction

In this blog post, I’ll share my experience setting up a VMware homelab using Vagrant for automation. This approach allows for quick and easy deployment of virtual machines, making it ideal for testing and development environments.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, ensure you have the following:

• VMware Workstation or Fusion
• Vagrant
• vagrant-vmware-desktop plugin

Setting Up Vagrant

1. Install Vagrant from the official website
2. Install the vagrant-vmware-desktop plugin:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-vmware-desktop

3. Obtain a license for the plugin (free for personal use)

Creating a Vagrantfile

Create a file named Vagrantfile in your project directory with the following content:

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.box = "generic/ubuntu2004"
  config.vm.provider "vmware_desktop" do |v|
    v.vmx["memsize"] = "1024"
    v.vmx["numvcpus"] = "2"
  end
end

This configuration specifies:

• Ubuntu 20.04 as the base image
• 1024 MB of RAM
• 2 CPU cores

Launching the VM

To start the virtual machine, run:

vagrant up

Accessing the VM

SSH into the VM using:

vagrant ssh

Customizing the VM

You can further customize the VM by modifying the Vagrantfile. For example, to add a second network interface:

config.vm.network "private_network", ip: "192.168.33.10"

Provisioning

Vagrant supports various provisioning methods. Here’s an example using a shell script:

config.vm.provision "shell", inline: <<-SHELL
  apt-get update
  apt-get install -y nginx
SHELL

Conclusion

Using Vagrant with VMware provides a powerful and flexible way to manage your homelab environment. It allows for easy creation, destruction, and recreation of VMs, making it ideal for testing and development purposes.

Citations: [1] https://kaladin.dev/blog/vmware-homelab-automation-with-vagrant/