dev-vm-ansible

Automated development virtual machine setup for students using Ansible. Created to reduce the time spent in classrooms downloading and configuring virtual machines.

Features

• ✅ Lightweight - Runs smoothly on modest hardware (tested with 2 GiB RAM)
• ✅ Compact - Initial VirtualBox disk size: ~4 GiB (~1 GiB when compressed)
• ✅ Preconfigured tools - comes with development software and setup scripts
• 🟡 Telemetry (opt-out, planned)

Tools

• PHP and Composer
• Python
• Sqlite3
• VSCode and Git

Install scripts

• Node.js and npm
• MariaDB
• Github cli

Download

Instructions

Virtualbox

Create the virtual machine

• Create a Virtualbox VM
  • At least 2 GiB RAM is recommended for using an IDE and a browser at the same time
  • A 20 GB VDI disk should be enough, adjust for your requirements
• Install Debian 13
  • Select en_US.UTF-8 locale
  • Set the hostname e.g. devvm
  • Create users (or update hosts)
    • Set root password to pass
    • Create user with password pass
  • Partition disks
    • Select "Guided - use entire disk" and "All files in one partiton" for a simple setup
    • Manually create a single bootable ext4 partition for a swapless setup
  • Software selection - select only SSH server
• Prepare the VM for ansible (after booting it for the first time)
  • Update VM network settings in VirtualBox Settings > Network > Attached to > Bridged Adapter
  • Log in as root su -
  • Restart network service systemctl restart networking
  • Get the ip address with ip a and update hosts in this repository
  • Install sudo and python for Ansible apt install sudo python3
  • Add user to sudoers adduser user sudo
  • Copy key by SSH-ing into the VM ssh [email protected]
• Setup the VM ansible-playbook playbooks/setup.yml
  • Edit group_vars to customize your setup

Telemetry

• Add telemetry ansible-playbook playbooks/telemetry.yml

Trim virtual disk

• Remove all unnecessary files ansible-playbook playbooks/cleanup.yml
• On VM, run clear-tmp and clear-disk, then shut it down
• On host, run vboxmanage modifymedium /mnt/storage/VBOX/phpdev/phpdev.vdi --compact
  • Edit this path to match your .vdi file

Updates

It is recommended to run new versions of these playbooks on a fresh Debian install. However, in most cases, re-running them should work without issues.

For details on changes, check the Releases page on GitHub.

Contributing

Before submitting a pull request, please discuss your proposed changes in an issue first. Major changes are generally not accepted, as this project is customized for my requirements. For such changes it is recommended to create your own fork of this project. However, feel free to open an issue if you encounter a problem or have any questions.

License

Note

Versions below v4 are licensed under the terms of the Unlicense.

This project is licensed under the terms of the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more information.