Installing Enterprise Vagrant Environment

This getting-started tutorial describes how to set up a client-server model with CFEngine and, through policy, manage both machines. Vagrant will create one VirtualBox VM to be the Policy Server (server), and another machine that will be the Host Agent (client), or host that can be managed by CFEngine. Both will will run CentOS 6.3 64-bit and communicate on a host-only network. Apart from a one-time download of Vagrant and VirtualBox, this setup requires just one command and takes between 5 and 15 minutes to complete (determined by your Internet connection and disk speed). Upon installation, you are ready to start working with CFEngine.

Overview

  1. Install Vagrant
  2. Install Virtualbox
  3. Start CFEngine Enterprise
  4. Log in to the Mission Portal
  5. Stop CFEngine Enterprise
  6. Uninstall

Install Vagrant

This tutorial uses Vagrant to configure your VMs. It is available for Linux, Windows and MacOS and can be downloaded from vagrantup.com (use version 1.3.5). After downloading Vagrant, install it on your computer.

Install Virtualbox

This tutorial uses VirtualBox to create virtual machines on your computer, to which Vagrant deploys CFEngine. VirtualBox can be downloaded from virtualbox.org (use version 4.2.18). After downloading VirtualBox, install it on your computer.

Note: To avoid problems, disable other virtual environments you are running.

Start CFEngine Enterprise

Step 1. Download our ready-made Vagrant project (use the tar-file or the zip-file depending on your preference).

Step 2. Save and unpack the file anywhere on your drive; this creates a Vagrant Project directory called vagrant_env.

Step 3. Open a terminal and navigate to the Vagrant Project directory (e.g. home/user/vagrant_env) and enter the following command:

$ vagrant up

Vagrant performs the following processes:

  • sets up two VirtualBox VMs
  • downloads a CentOS image and CFEngine packages
  • configures the VMs as a CFEngine Policy Server and a Host that are connected on a host-only network.

Depending on your Internet connection and disk speed, this process should take about 5-15 minutes.

Note: If you want to use more hosts in your evaluation of CFEngine, you can edit the Vagrantfile text file in the directory that you have just created. Change the line that says "nodes = 1" to the number of hosts that you want in the setup. The maximum supported in this evaluation version of CFEngine is 25.

Log in to the Mission Portal

At the end of the setup process, you can use your browser to log in to the Mission Portal:

http://localhost:9002

username: admin

password: admin

The installation is complete! Read on to start your first lesson on how to use CFEngine.

Stop CFEngine Enterprise

To stop the VMs, but keep them around to continue your evaluation later, open the terminal, go to the Vagrant directory, and type:

$ vagrant halt

To resume, type:

$ vagrant up

Uninstall the Enterprise Vagrant Environment

When you have completed your evaluation are ready to use CFEngine on production servers, remove the VMs that you created above by following these simple instructions:

To remove the VMs entirely, type: vagrant destroy

If you are completely done and do not anticipate using them anymore, you can also remove the "base box" that was downloaded. To find the name of it, type vagrant box list, copy the name of the box and then type vagrant box remove <name> virtualbox.

Vagrant and VirtualBox are useful general purpose programs, so you might want to keep them around. If not, follow the standard procedures for your OS to remove these applications.

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