What Is Vagrant?

What is Vagrant?

Vagrant is an open-source software product that is used to manage any development environment. Using Vagrant, you can install any virtual OS using the CLI (Command Line Interface), run it, do some work, and shut it down.

Vagrant works with any virtualization engine, such as VirtualBox, VMware, libvirt (Linux) etc.

You need to have one of these virtualization engines for Vagrant to run a virtual OS.

Why use Vagrant?

Vagrant uses a clean and easy method to define and run different environment setups. There’s a large community that is pushing their ready-to-go images onto Vagrant Cloud.

Vagrant can also be used to test provisioning scripts before pushing them to production. Applications and other related tests are also being done using Vagrant.

There are a variety of cases in which using Vagrant will be the optimal choice over using any other plain virtual engines, such as VirtualBox, VMware, etc. Let’s look at some scenarios in which Vagrant is the optimal choice for the given task.

Let’s say you’re working on an application that you want to ensure is working well and has no more debugging left to do. You wouldn’t want to go through the painstaking process of making a Virtual Machine in one of the virtualization engines, such as VMware or VirtualBox, setting up the GUI, and configuring the necessary files. Vagrant becomes a savior in this scenario. With just a few lines of terminal commands, you’ll be up and running the virtual OS using Vagrant, allowing you to decrease the downtime and increase your workflow efficiency. In addition, you can export the Vagrant file into another system, and it’ll work exactly the same, preventing the library and dependency conflicts.

There are many preconfigured boxes available on the Vagrant website, which means that there’s no need to provision anything; everything is preconfigured, and you’ll be up and running the virtual OS in no time.

You can also create multiple machines within a single Vagrantfile to check how your application works across different environments.

Head over to the Vagrant website for a chance to familiarize yourself with Vagrant.