A project that illustrates how to create a Python vagrant base box with Fragrant.

This will create a Vagrant base box for Python development with the following features:

• Ubuntu Precise 32
• Python 2.7 (via pythonbrew in case you want to run multiple Python versions)
• Mongo 2.x
• Redis
• PIL dependancies (so you can pip install PIL)
• lxml dependancies (so you can pip install lxml)
• git flow
• virtualenvwrapper
• A default virtualenv called 'python' (workon python)
• node.js
• apt-fast

Since this is a simple fabric script, it's trivial to change to fit your needs.

Follow the installation instructions for VirtualBox and Vagrant on the Vagrant Getting Started Guide. Ignore the section "Your First Vagrant Virtual Environment" as you'll use these fragrant scripts to setup your first virtual environment.

These provision instructions only work for Mac and possibly Linux.

Make sure pip is installed:

which pip || sudo easy_install pip

Once you have pip installed, you'll need a couple of packages:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Install the linux base box:

vagrant box add precise32 http://files.vagrantup.com/precise32.box

Provision the virtual box (this will take a long time):

fab provision

If provision fails, fix the problem and run again. It's designed to recover where it left off.

Create a vagrant .box:

fab package

Add the base box to your system:

vagrant box add python27 python27.box    

Once you have the python27 base box installed, creating a VM is pretty simple. Instructions are for Mac/Linux. You'll need to do similar steps on Windows.

# Create a directory for the VM
mkdir -p ~/VagrantBoxes/myproject
# Change to the directory
cd ~/VagrantBoxes/myproject
# Initialize VM
vagrant init python27

vagrant init puts a Vagrantfile in your VM directory. You'll need to edit it for your personal setup.

By default, it expects your code to be in "~/Dropbox/Projects", for example "~/Dropbox/Projects/myproject". If you need to use a different directory, add the following to your Vagrantfile:

config.vm.share_folder "Projects", "~/Dropbox/Projects", "PATH/TO/PROJECTS", :nfs => true

This will setup the virtual box to run on 192.168.33.13 by default. You need to add this to your hosts file:

echo "192.168.33.12 local.myproject.com" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

NOTE: On Windows the hosts file is different, see http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/windows-7-hosts-file/

Run your Vagrant box and SSH in:

cd ~/VagrantBoxes/myproject
vagrant up
vagrant ssh

When SSHed into your Vagrant box, your code is in ~/Dropbox/Projects. You need to activate the Python virtual environment:

workon python

You can set your default directory for your virtual environment:

cd ~/Dropbox/Projects/myproject
setvirtualenvproject