---
layout: welcome
title: Welcome
---
Vagrant is a tool for building and distributing virtualized development environments.

By providing automated creation and provisioning of virtual machines
using [Sun's VirtualBox](http://www.virtualbox.org), Vagrant provides
the tools to create and configure lightweight, reproducible, and portable
virtual environments. For more information, see the part of the
getting started guide on "[Why Vagrant?](/docs/getting-started/why.html)"

Are you ready to use vagrant to revolutionize the way you work? Check out
the [getting started guide](/docs/getting-started/index.html) and the
[getting started video](http://vimeo.com/9976342).

## Your First Vagrant Virtual Environment

{% highlight bash %}
$ sudo gem install vagrant
$ vagrant box add base http://files.vagrantup.com/base.box
$ vagrant init
$ vagrant up
{% endhighlight %}

These four commands alone will automatically download and create a bare bones
Ubuntu-based server running in the background. Sure, that on its own isn't
that amazing, but imagine running a single `vagrant up` and having a fully
featured web development environment running! This is all possible with Vagrant.

## Feature List

This is a compact feature list of Vagrant. For more information on any of
the specific features, read the [getting started guide](/docs/getting-started/index.html).

* Automated virtual machine creation using [Sun's VirtualBox](http://www.virtualbox.org)
* Automated provisioning of virtual environments using [chef](http://www.opscode.com/chef)
* Forward ports to the host machine
* Full SSH access to created environments
* Shared folders allows you to continue using your own editor
* Package environments into distributable boxes
* Completely tear down environment when you're done
* Easily rebuild a complete environment with a single command