Combox enables you to easily deploy and manage development environments on your own system. Combox is part of the ComodIT IT Automation platform. See the related post on the ComodIT blog.

1. Have a working comodit-client setup. See here.
2. Have a working VirtualBox setup.

1. Add ComodIT repository by executing the following command:
   • On CentOS 6: rpm -ivh http://dl.comodit.com/pub/centos/6/x86_64/comodit-release-6-3.el6.noarch.rpm
   • On Fedora 16: rpm -ivh http://dl.comodit.com/pub/fedora/16/x86_64/comodit-release-16-1.fc16.noarch.rpm
   • On Fedora 17: rpm -ivh http://dl.comodit.com/pub/fedora/17/x86_64/comodit-release-17-1.fc17.noarch.rpm
   • On Fedora 18: rpm -ivh http://dl.comodit.com/pub/fedora/18/x86_64/comodit-release-18-1.fc18.noarch.rpm
2. Install client with command yum install comodit-combox.

Usage: combox <action>

• deploy : Define the host on ComodIT and deploy it on VirtualBox.
• teardown : Power off the VirtualBox VM, unregister it, then delete the comodit host.
• setup : Create a ComodIT environment and upload applications.
• stop : Stop the VirtualBox VM.
• start : Start the VirtualBox VM.
• cleanup : Remove uploaded application from ComodIT

Everything takes place in the .combox/combox.conf configuration file. You can look at the sample provided in this repository.

{
    "vm" : {
        "name": "combox-host",
        "memory": "512",
        "ports_fw" : [["127.0.0.1", "2222", "22"]],
        "shares" : []
    },
    "applications":  [{
            "name": ".combox/virtualbox-guest-additions",
            "settings": {"shares":[{"name":"default", "mount":"/mnt"}]}
        }
    ],
    "distribution": {
        "name" : "CentOS 6",
        "store_uuid": "EA09D3703EC811E28139D51B7F000001"
        "settings" : {
            "root_password": "secret"
        }
    }
}

The virtualbox virtual machines settings.

• name: the name of the virtualbox machine
• memory: memory set for the virtualbox machine
• ports_fw: port forwarding on [<host>, <local_port>, <remote_port>]
• shares: arrays of arrays [<share_name>, <path_to_folder_to_share>]

Array of exported Comodit applications. See here to export your ComodIT applications. Usually, a developer using combox will provide the necessary recipes.

• name: the path to the application
• settings: the application settings

This will be used to define the operating system that will be installed on the virtualbox machine. Two possibilities: either you specify a name of a distribution that already exists in your ComodIT organization, or you can specify the store uuid of a distribution. Combox will automatically purchase it (don't worry, it's free), from the ComodIT store and install it in your organization.

• name: the distribution name as in your ComodIT organization.
• store_uuid: the uuid of the distribution you want to purchase
• settings: specific settings for the distribution. In the example above, the root password.