Yashraj Garnayak's Blog

🚀 2nd week of my DevOps Journey: Multi-VM Setup and Hosting with Vagrant

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Yashraj Garnayak
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Welcome back, everyone! In my ongoing DevOps Journey, I took a major step forward this week in building a multi-node infrastructure using Vagrant. This week was all about automating VM provisioning, hosting dynamic web applications, and applying my growing skills in Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

Let me walk you through the exciting progress I made!

🛠️ This Week's Achievements

I took on the challenge of creating a multi-VM setup that mimics real-world server environments. Here's what I accomplished:

1️⃣ Multi-VM Setup with Vagrant

I configured two virtual machines:

  • Node 1: Ubuntu with WordPress Hosting

    • Set up WordPress on an Ubuntu VM using a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP).

    • Automated the entire process with shell provisioning scripts.

  • Node 2: CentOS Stream 9 with Static Website

    • Deployed a static website using the Moso Interior template on a CentOS Stream 9 VM.

    • Configured Apache to serve the website.

2️⃣ Private Networking for Seamless Communication

Both VMs were set up with private networking, ensuring secure and isolated communication:

  • Ubuntu Node (WordPress): 192.168.56.10

  • CentOS Node (Static Website): 192.168.56.11

This configuration allows for smooth interaction between the two nodes, perfect for testing and development.

3️⃣ Automating Provisioning

To automate the setup, I created and used the following shell scripts:

  • Ubuntu Provisioning Script:

    • Installs Apache, MySQL, PHP, and sets up a WordPress site.

    • Configures MySQL and WordPress with the appropriate settings.

  • CentOS Provisioning Script:

    • Installs Apache, downloads the static website template, and sets up the site on /var/www/html/.

    • Disables the firewall (be cautious when applying this in production).

Both provisioning scripts are executed automatically when the VMs are brought up using vagrant up.

4️⃣ Streamlined Management with Vagrantfile

I used a single Vagrantfile to define and manage both VMs, ensuring that I can easily bring up, configure, and destroy the environment with a few simple commands.

🔍 Key Takeaways

  • Automation & IaC: By using Vagrant, I automated the deployment and configuration of virtual machines, cutting down manual effort and ensuring consistency across environments.

  • Real-World Applications: I successfully hosted a WordPress site on Ubuntu and a static website on CentOS, demonstrating the practical value of multi-VM environments.

  • Network Configuration: I gained hands-on experience in managing private networks, an essential part of DevOps for maintaining secure communication between VMs.

⚙️ How You Can Try It Too

If you're eager to try this out, I've made the full setup available on my GitHub repository:
👉 IAC_Infrastructure_as_Code

Here's how to get started:

  1. Clone the repository to your local machine.

  2. Ensure you have Vagrant and a compatible VMware provider installed.

  3. Run the following command to start your VMs:

     vagrant up

  4. Access the deployed applications:

📝 Inside the Scripts

Ubuntu Provisioning Script (ubuntu_script.sh)

This script installs everything needed for WordPress: Apache, MySQL, PHP, and the WordPress site itself. It creates the database, sets user permissions, and configures WordPress' wp-config.php file for database access.

bashCopy code#!/bin/bash
sudo apt update
sudo apt install apache2 ghostscript libapache2-mod-php mysql-server php php-bcmath php-curl php-imagick php-intl php-json php-mbstring php-mysql php-xml php-zip -y
sudo mkdir -p /srv/www
sudo chown www-data: /srv/www
curl https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz | sudo -u www-data tar zx -C /srv/www
...

CentOS Provisioning Script (centos_script.sh)

This script installs Apache, downloads a static website template, and sets it up on the CentOS server. It then restarts Apache to serve the new site.

bashCopy code#!/bin/bash
yum update -y
yum install httpd wget unzip -y
systemctl start httpd
systemctl enable httpd
systemctl stop firewalld
mkdir -p /tmp/website
cd /tmp/website
wget https://www.tooplate.com/zip-templates/2133_moso_interior.zip
unzip -o 2133_moso_interior.zip
cp -r 2133_moso_interior/* /var/www/html/
...

📈 Why This Matters

By setting up multi-node environments and automating provisioning, I’m learning how to simulate real-world scenarios where multiple VMs are required. This skill is essential for DevOps, as it allows for rapid deployment, testing, and scaling of applications.

🔮 Next Steps

I’m now looking forward to:

  • Experimenting with advanced provisioning tools like Ansible to automate even more complex setups.

  • Expanding my CI/CD workflows and integrating these environments into the deployment pipeline.

  • Exploring cloud-based infrastructure to scale these concepts beyond local VMs.

That’s it for this week’s update in my DevOps journey! I hope you found this post helpful. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to drop them in the comments. Let's keep pushing forward!

#DevOps #IAC #Vagrant #Ubuntu #CentOS #Automation #WordPress #StaticWebsite #MultiVM #IaC

multiple VMDevops#IaCvagrantautomation