Arthur

A virtual machine environment for web development.

Usage

Install the latest versions of the following:

• Homebrew
• VirtualBox with extensions pack
• Vagrant
• Ansible
• Packer

After installing Homebrew you can quickly install the other dependencies:

brew install ansible ansible-lint packer
brew cask install vagrant virtualbox virtualbox-extension-pack

Now run the following command: vagrant up.

Host Commands

Build the box using Packer:

(cd packer && packer build --force template.json)

Bring up the virtual machine:

vagrant up

Remove SSH key:

ssh-keygen -R 192.168.33.42

Start up headless Chrome and Selenium (IP address whitelist is import to connect host to guest):

chromedriver --url-base=/wd/hub --whitelisted-ips=''

Access MailHog at http://192.168.33.42:1025

Guest Commands

Start up headless Chrome and Selenium:

chromedriver --url-base=/wd/hub

Removing all virtualhost configurations:

rmsites

Symlinking a virtualhost configuration in the current directory:

lnsite
lnsite foo.conf
lnsite *-foo.conf

Run versions to list the installed software.

Debug Commands

Lint the playbook:

ansible-lint ansible/playbook.yml

Validate the playbook:

ansible-playbook ansible/playbook.yml --syntax-check

Install the required roles:

ansible-galaxy install -r ansible/requirements.yml

Ping the inventory:

ansible all -m ping

Get facts about the inventory:

ansible all -m setup -v
ansible all -m setup -v > facts.json

Run tasks by tag:

ansible-playbook ansible/playbook.yml --tags "foo,bar"
ansible-playbook ansible/playbook.yml --skip-tags "foo,bar"

Run tasks with extra variables:

ansible-playbook ansible/playbook.yml --extra-vars="user_account=foobar"

Run playbook on production:

ansible-playbook ansible/playbook.yml --ask-become-pass --limit production
ansible-playbook ansible/playbook.yml --ask-become-pass --limit production --tags user

Debug a playbook:

ansible-playbook -i 192.168.33.42, --user=vagrant --private-key=~/Projects/arthur/vagrant/.vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/private_key --ssh-common-args="-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no" ansible/playbook.yml

To fix macOS Mojave Python issus:

export OBJC_DISABLE_INITIALIZE_FORK_SAFETY=YES

To provision the virtual machine for further development, add these lines to Vagrantfile:

# Provision Debugging
config.vm.box = "bento/ubuntu-18.04"
config.vm.provision :ansible do |ansible|
    ansible.inventory_path = "inventory"
    ansible.playbook       = "ansible/playbook.yml"
    ansible.limit          = "development"
    ansible.verbose        = true
end

And then provision the VM:

vagrant provision

In order to access Go web applications the ports will need to be opened in UFW:

sudo ufw allow 8080

You can make daily usage easier with this handy alias:

function arthur() {
    (cd ~/Projects/arthur && vagrant $*)
}

Future Improvements

Potential improves and ideas to improve Arthur:

• Remove non-development bits (firewall, SSH configuration, inventory groups, idempotent bits like Composer and Go). ***
• Move configuration of PHP, MySQL, Bash, etc. to an init provisioner in Vagrant,so it can easily be reloaded. ***
• Switch permissions to u=rwx,g=rwx,o=rwx format.
• Use an Ansible vault to store passwords and settings.
• Store packaged boxes on cloud storage (Dropbox, Google Drive).
• Add /etc/hosts file with domains in for projects so internal requests resolve.
• Overhaul the README.md and make improvements.

Software

Software to consider adding in the future:

• Use Vagrant Guest Additions Plugin
• Use Vagrant Hostsupdater Plugin.
• Use Vagrant Disk Size Plugin.
• Look at using existing Ansible Galaxy roles.

Alternatives

Alternatives to this VM, mostly for reference:

• Laravel Homestead
• Laravel Valet
• DBngin

Links

Links that have been useful for development and debugging.

• https://serversforhackers.com/managing-logs-with-logrotate
• http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_vault.html
• ansible/ansible#22497
• geerlingguy/ansible-role-mysql#42 (comment)
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32429259/ansible-fails-with-bin-sh-1-usr-bin-python-not-found
• http://phptest.club/t/how-to-run-headless-chrome-in-codeception/1544
• http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_best_practices.html#best-practices-for-variables-and-vaults
• https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2018/use-ansibles-yaml-callback-plugin-better-cli-experience
• ansible/ansible#34056
• https://linuxconfig.org/install-go-on-ubuntu-18-04-bionic-beaver-linux
• https://github.com/laravel/settler/blob/master/scripts/provision.sh
• https://github.com/laravel/homestead/blob/master/Vagrantfile
• https://bizwind.github.io/2019-06-26/improving-synced-folder-performance-in-vagrant
• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+bug/1785778
• https://askubuntu.com/questions/41605/trouble-downloading-packages-list-due-to-a-hash-sum-mismatch-error
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49822594/vagrant-how-to-specify-the-disk-size
• https://virtualzero.net/blog/how-to-install-virtualbox-guest-additions-in-ubuntu-server-18.04-lts
• https://kifarunix.com/install-virtualbox-guest-additions-on-ubuntu-18-04/
• https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-virtualization-and-cloud-90/how-to-check-version-of-virtualbox-guest-additions-currently-installed-in-guest-syste-946053/
• https://mysqlserverteam.com/mysql-8-0-collations-migrating-from-older-collations/
• https://vagrantcloud.com/bento/boxes/ubuntu-18.04/versions/202005.21.0/providers/virtualbox.box