zarvox/HOWTO-libvirt.md Secret

## HOWTO-libvirt.md

      
    Raw
  

              HOWTO-libvirt.md
            
          
    Using vagrant-spk with libvirt

If you're running on Linux, you have the option of using vagrant-spk with Vagrant's libvirt
backend.  Some developers have performance or reliability issues with VirtualBox and prefer to use
libvirt.
Some caveats:

libvirt is not the default Vagrant backend, and is nowhere near as widely used as the VirtualBox
backend.  Things may break, either in Vagrant, libvirt, or in vagrant-spk.
You will have to do some additional up-front configuration, which may be annoying/burdensome.

That said, Drew (@zarvox) uses the libvirt backend for all of his vagrant-spk work, and would prefer
that it work for people in general, so if you're so inclined, try it out, and file bugs if you hit
issues.  Thanks!
Install libvirt/libvirtd/virt-manager

On Fedora, this would be:
sudo dnf install virt-manager libvirt libvirt-daemon
On Debian/Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install libvirtd virt-manager

Install vagrant

Fedora:
sudo dnf install vagrant
Install vagrant-libvirt

Fedora:
sudo dnf install vagrant-libvirt
Disable sandboxing of your VM/SELinux enforcement

This is necessary to allow mounting shared folders from your user's home directory (or wherever the
app you're developing is located) read-write, and getting the correct permissions out the other
side.
Fedora: edit /etc/libvirt/qemu.conf and set the following keys (there are comment blocks for each
in the default config):
security_driver = "none"
user = "root"
group = "root"
dynamic_ownership = 0
clear_emulator_capabilities = 0


The first key says "disable SELinux enforcement".
The second and third say "run qemu-kvm as root", which is needed so that the process has
CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE and can create files owned by your user account.
The fourth key says "don't change files to be owned by root".  We want files owned by your user
account, by and large.
The fifth key says "don't drop CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE".  Linux has a curious feature which allows
processes running as root to drop certain privileges.  However, in this case, we need the one
that allows you to read/modify/write files owned by other users (namely, the user you are doing
development as).

Install vagrant-mutate and import a box

We need the vagrant-mutate plugin to import a box originally packaged for VirtualBox, convert it
to the libvirt disk image format, and register it as the equivalent box name for Vagrant to use it.
Install the plugin:
vagrant plugin install mutate
Import the VirtualBox box:
vagrant box add sandstorm/debian-jessie64
Produce an appropriate box for usage with libvirt:
vagrant mutate sandstorm/debian-jessie64 libvirt
Set libvirt default provider

Fedora users can skip this step.
To make sure vagrant knows to use the libvirt backend for managing VMs, you'll need to set an
environment variable:
export VAGRANT_DEFAULT_PROVIDER=libvirt
You'll probably want to put the above line in your $HOME/.bashrc so you don't have to type it every time
you open a shell that you use vagrant-spk in.
Use vagrant-spk with libvirt

Now, whenever you use vagrant-spk, vagrant should attempt to use the libvirt backend when creating VMs. :)
If you have an app where vagrant-spk previously created a VirtualBox VM, vagrant will continue to interact
with that VM until you run vagrant-spk destroy, after which the next vagrant-spk up should create a libvirt VM.