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Creating a Vagrant Box

Although a number of base Vagrant boxes are available on the Vagrant box repository, there may be times where we need to create our own virtual machine image that Vagrant can use to provision new environments. And while some of this configuration is provider-specific, there are still a number of tasks that all base boxes require in order to work with Vagrant out of the box.

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Lab platform
Lab Info
Level
Beginner
Last updated
Sep 10, 2025
Duration
15m

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Table of Contents
  1. Challenge

    Install Needed Packages
    1. Switch to root:

      sudo -i
      
    2. Install the linux-headers package for the appropriate release, build-essential and dkms. Note: Please wait several minutes for the dpkg lock to release if you have trouble installing the software.:

      apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential dkms -y
      
  2. Challenge

    Configure Vagrant Users
    1. Create a new vagrant user:

      useradd vagrant -m -G sudo -s /bin/bash
      
    2. Set the default password for both vagrant and root users to vagrant:

      passwd vagrant
      passwd root
      
    3. Ensure the vagrant user can use passwordless sudo:

      visudo
      
      vagrant ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
      

      Save and exit visudo.

  3. Challenge

    Add the Vagrant Public Key
    1. Switch to the vagrant user:

      su - vagrant
      
    2. Create an .ssh directory:

      mkdir .ssh
      
    3. Pull down the public key and add it to the authorized_keys file:

      wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hashicorp/vagrant/master/keys/vagrant.pub
      mv vagrant.pub .ssh/authorized_keys
      
    4. Set the permissions for the new directory and file:

      sudo chmod 700 .ssh
      sudo chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys
      
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