Easy OSX Management with Boxen and Homebrew

01_README.md

Boxen as an App Manager

Dowside to boxen is the community of supporters. It's a popular project, but nowhere near as popular as Homebrew (Casks) are. After two years of using only Boxen modules, I gave up. Updates were too slow, lots of overhead to get modules approved, and I still ended up writing a good number of modules myself. Not really a value-add, if I'm just adding an abstraction layer that I still need to manage. Ideally, I'd like to leverage the skills of the larger community and rely on herd-mentality to keep my system updated.

To that end, I wanted a quick and easy way to add/remove applications to my system to be managed without worrying about the future of the computer. Here is what my system looks like:

• All data stored in GitHub, Dropbox or BTSync. Boxen creates Symlinks from popular folders to ~/ as needed.
• All apps are installed via Boxen. Very few exceptions. Boxen manages App Store, Homebrew Installs, and Symlinks only.

Flow

$ boxen-edit hiera
$ boxen-save "commit message"
$ boxen

The scripts exist to remove friction and ensure good habits. This means real commit messages and ensuring everything is saved in SCM and stored offsite as soon as a save occurs.

That's it! Anytime I want a new application, I'll do a quick search for it via Homebrew, edit the files as needed, and move on with life. If I have a failure of a laptop, I simply download Boxen on a new machine, and depending on Internet speed I have my environment back in about 2 hours, and all my data back in under 24. I can get work done after the 2 hour mark, and I'm moving again after the data restore.

Who cares about the laptop? It's not a ❄️ anymore. It's just my computing device. I'll take a new one, anytime.

02_personal-hiera.yaml

# This file contains all of the settings for my computer
---
# Cask Search: http://caskroom.io/search
# Apple ID Search: https://github.com/xdissent/puppet-appstore

appstore::appleid: "XXX"
appstore::password: "XXX"
appstore::store: "us"
appstore::apps:
  "iStat Mini":
    source: 'istat-mini/id927292435'
  Cyberduck:
    source: 'cyberduck/id409222199'
  GrimFandango:
    source: "grim-fandango-remastered/id1022841309"
  Dash:
    source: "dash-3-api-docs-snippets./id449589707"
  Divvy:
    source: "divvy-window-manager/id413857545"
  OmniGraffle:
    source: "omnigraffle-6/id711830901"
  Watts:
    source: "watts/id422559334"
  "Textual 5":
    source: "textual-5/id896450579"
  OmniFocus:
    source: "omnifocus-2/id867299399"
  Slack:
    source: "slack/id803453959"
  DaisyDisk:
    source: "daisydisk/id411643860"
  Skitch:
    source: "skitch-snap.-mark-up.-share./id425955336"
  "YubiKey Personalization Tool":
    source: "yubikey-personalization-tool/id638161122"
  1Password:
    source: "1password-password-manager/id443987910"
  Numbers:
    source: "numbers/id409203825"
  Pocket:
    source: "pocket/id568494494"
  Keynote:
    source: "keynote/id409183694"
  Pages:
    source: "pages/id409201541"
  "Day One":
    source: "day-one/id422304217"
  Evernote:
    source: "evernote/id406056744"
  Caffeine:
    source: "caffeine/id411246225"
  Tweetbot:
    source: "tweetbot-for-twitter/id557168941"
  "The Unarchiver":
    source: "the-unarchiver/id425424353"
  "Microsoft Remote Desktop":
    source: "microsoft-remote-desktop/id715768417"
# Boxen Modules
apps:
  - tmux
  - wget 
# Homebrew Apps
homebrew::packages:
  - "reattach-to-user-namespace"
  - "elixir"
  - "axel"
  - "gnupg2"
  - "nmap"
  - "pyenv"
  - "pyenv-virtualenv"
  - "aspell"
  - "cmake"
  - "dfu-util"
# Symlinks
dotfiles::dirs:
  - .gnupg
  - bin
dotfiles::files:
  - .aliases
  - .env
  - .gitconfig
  - .tmux.conf
  - .vimrc
  - .zlogin
  - .zlogout
  - .zpreztorc
  - .zprofile
  - .zshenv
  - .zshrc
  - .tmuxinator
  - .bundle
  - .spacemacs
# Homebrew Casks
homebrew::casks:
  - "iterm2-nightly"
  - "java"
  - "alfred"
  - "skype"
  - "vagrant"
  - "steam"
  - "spotify"
  - "vmware-fusion"
  - "dropbox"
  - "packer"
  - "appcleaner"
  - "flux-beta"
  - "arduino"
  - "screenhero"
  - "vyprvpn"
  - "teensy"
  - "bartender"
  - "heroku-toolbelt"
  - "emacs-mac"
  - "microsoft-office365"
  - "libreoffice"
  - "xquartz-beta"
  - "unifi-controller"
  - "tunnelblick-beta"
  - "transmission"
  - "sonos"
  - "little-snitch"
  - "wireshark"
  - "apache-directory-studio"
  - "tuneup"
  - "calibre"
  - "cisco-spark"
  - "google-drive"
  - "firefox"
  - "google-chrome"
  - "istat-menus"
  - "bittorrent-sync"
  - "torbrowser"
  - "flash"
  - "macvim"
  - "unetbootin"
  - "rescuetime"
  - "omnifocus"
  - "macid"
  - "licecap"
  - "namebench"
  - "tigervnc-viewer"
  - "camtasia"
  - "smart-scroll"
  - "terraform"

03_personal-manifest.pp

class people::jfryman {
  #include ::people::jfryman::env_settings

  $_apps = hiera('apps', undef)
  $_homebrew_packages = hiera('homebrew::packages', undef)
  $_homebrew_casks = hiera('homebrew::casks', undef)
  $_homebrew_taps = hiera('homebrew::taps', undef)
  $_appstore_apps = hiera('appstore::apps', undef)
  $_homedir = "/Users/${::luser}"

  if $_apps {
    validate_array($_apps)
    include $_apps
  }

  if $_appstore_apps {
    validate_hash($_appstore_apps)
    create_resources('appstore::app', $_appstore_apps)
  }

  if $_homebrew_packages {
    package { $_homebrew_packages:
      ensure   => present,
      provider => 'homebrew',
    }
  }

  if $_homebrew_taps {
    homebrew::tap { $_homebrew_taps: }
  }

  if $_homebrew_casks {
    include ::brewcask
    package { $_homebrew_casks:
      ensure   => present,
      provider => 'brewcask',
    }

    sudoers { 'cask-installer':
      users    => $::boxen_user,
      hosts    => 'ALL',
      commands => [
        '(ALL) NOPASSWD:SETENV: /usr/sbin/installer',
      ],
      type     => 'user_spec',
    }
  }

  ## Dotfiles
  include ::dotfiles
  ::dotfiles::dir { '.ssh':
    mode => '0700',
  }
  repository { "${_homedir}/.zprezto":
    source => 'sorin-ionescu/prezto',
    extra  => [
      '--recursive',
    ],
  }
  file { "${_homedir}/repo":
    ensure => link,
    target => '/Volumes/Repositories',
  }

  ## Spacemacs
  repository { "${_homedir}/.emacs.d":
    source => 'syl20bnr/spacemacs',
    extra  => [
      '--recursive',
    ],
  }

  ## Vagrant
  vagrant::plugin { 'vagrant-vmware-fusion':
    license => 'puppet:///modules/people/jfryman/licenses/fusion.lic',
  }
  Package['vagrant'] -> Vagrant::Plugin<||>

  sudoers { 'vagrant-nfs':
    users    => $::boxen_user,
    hosts    => 'ALL',
    commands => [
      '(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/tee -a /etc/exports',
      '(ALL) NOPASSWD: /sbin/nfsd restart',
      '(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/sed -E -e /*/ d -ibak /etc/exports',
    ],
    type     => 'user_spec',
  }

}

04_boxen-edit.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

REPO=/opt/boxen/repo

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
  echo "dude, come on. what do you want to edit?"
  echo "manifest? hiera?. gimmie something, mang"
  exit 1
fi

TYPE=$1
case $TYPE in
  manifest)
    FILE="${REPO}/modules/people/manifests/jfryman.pp"
    ;;
  hiera)
    FILE="${REPO}/hiera/users/jfryman.yaml"
    ;;
  *)
    echo "mang, what even is that? try again"
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

vi $FILE

05_boxen-save.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
  echo "dude, come on. commit message"
  exit 1
fi

COMMIT_MESSAGE=$1

cd /opt/boxen/repo
git commit -am "cli save: ${COMMIT_MESSAGE}"
git push origin master