39 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
39 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: "intro"
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page_title: "Vagrant vs. CLI Tools"
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sidebar_current: "vs-cli-tools"
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description: |-
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Virtualization software like VirtualBox and VMware come with command line
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utilities for managing the lifecycle of machines on their platform. Vagrant
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actually uses many of these utilities internally. The difference between these
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CLI tools and Vagrant is that Vagrant provides a declarative, reproducible,
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idempotent workflow.
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---
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# Vagrant vs. CLI Tools
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Virtualization software like VirtualBox and VMware come with command line
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utilities for managing the lifecycle of machines on their platform. Many
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people make use of these utilities to write their own automation. Vagrant
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actually uses many of these utilities internally.
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The difference between these CLI tools and Vagrant is that Vagrant builds
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on top of these utilities in a number of ways while still providing a
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consistent workflow. Vagrant supports multiple synced folder types, multiple
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provisioners to setup the machine, automatic SSH setup, creating HTTP tunnels
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into your development environment, and more. All of these can be configured
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using a single simple configuration file.
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Vagrant still has a number of improvements over manual scripting even if you
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ignore all the higher-level features Vagrant provides. The command-line
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utilities provided by virtualization software often change each version
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or have subtle bugs with workarounds. Vagrant automatically detects the
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version, uses the correct flags, and can work around known issues. So if
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you're using one version of VirtualBox and a co-worker is using a different
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version, Vagrant will still work consistently.
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For highly-specific workflows that don't change often, it can still be
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beneficial to maintain custom scripts. Vagrant is targeted at building
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development environments but some advanced users still use the CLI tools
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underneath to do other manual things.
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