Install and Use Vagrant on Linux Mint 19 with Virtualbox

Vagrant is a tool for building and managing virtual machine environments in a single workflow. With an easy-to-use workflow and focus on automation, Vagrant lowers development environment setup time, increases production parity, and makes the "works on my machine" excuse a relic of the past.

We can always install vagrant from the repository, but the one in the repository is quite an old version, which is 2.0.2. So we will download the latest version from https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html. Since they do not provide a package for ubuntu/mint, we will use debian package.

To download the installer

$ wget -c https://releases.hashicorp.com/vagrant/2.2.7/vagrant_2.2.7_x86_64.deb 

To install vagrant

$ sudo apt install ./vagrant_2.2.7_x86_64.deb -y

Download virtualbox, if you still have not install it

$ wget -c https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/6.1.4/virtualbox-6.1_6.1.4-136177~Ubuntu~bionic_amd64.deb

Install  virtualbox

$ sudo apt install ./virtualbox-6.1_6.1.4-136177~Ubuntu~bionic_amd64.deb -y

Let's say we want to create an ubuntu bionic virtual machine (VM) using vagrant. First we have to run init

$ mkdir -p  vagrant/ubuntu-bionic

$ cd vagrant/ubuntu-bionic

$ vagrant init hashicorp/bionic64

$ vagrant up

The init command will create a standard Vagrantfile, which can be used to define the specs of virtual machine we want to make.

The up command will use the Vagrantfile, and create a VM out of it.

Once all the downloading is done, the VM will be created, and you can login into the box using ssh command

$ vagrant ssh

And within just a few commands, you already have a working virtual machine without having to do the standard operating system installation just like when you create a virtual machine using the traditional way.