‼️	This repository is no longer actively maintained. The vagrant box still works, but does not receive any further updates other than community contributed fixes. Currently focusing on our LEMP stack development

Jolliest vagrant

This is a simple WordPress optimized vagrant server with minimal provisioning, originally created for local development environment for multiple WordPress projects.

This vagrant server can be used as plain local server for serving your files or testing static PHP, but it's also perfect for WordPress development.

Currently successfully tested on Linux (elementary OS), Mac OS X and Windows 10.

See also our LEMP box marlin-vagrant.

What's inside?

Feature	Version / amount
Ubuntu	12.04.5 LTS (Precise Pangolin)
MySQL	5.5
PHP	5.3.10 (optionally 5.5.30)
WordPress optimizations	PHP modules recommended for optimal WordPress performance
Vagrant	NFS, provision.sh with pre-installed packages, speed optimizations
CPU cores	2
RAM	2 GB
Apache	2.2.22 (optionally 2.4.16)

Background

I tried about 30 vagrant setups before this box. I created already two vagrant-repositories before this one. Started to modify them to my needs and noticed that commit after commit I got more and more stuck with stuff I didn't need or wasn't patient enough to learn how to configure thoroughly.

After bashing my head to the wall enough, ended up removing those repositories and learn everything from scratch. There are too many vagrant setups and I have probably tried most of them.

Chef and puppet are crazy by their configurations and learning curve. Managed to handle them but after all I'm more of a bash guy, so naturally this version of my vagrant setup will use only simple bash script. Keep it simple, stupid.

The story behind the name

Tried to make up distinctive name for this and noticed server for multiple projects anagrams to scrump of jolliest perverter. That's why this is the jolliest vagrant ever.

Usage

To start this vagrant box, always run vagrant up --provision, with provision -hook to ensure all the stuff are loaded up properly.

Table of contents

1. Installation on Mac/Linux
2. Installation on Windows
3. Post-installations
4. Installing FastCGI
5. Installing Alternative PHP cache
6. More speed with configs
7. How to add new vhost
8. How to remove a project or vhost
9. Connecting with another computer in LAN
10. Port forwarding (optional)
11. SSL / HTTPS (optional)
12. Installing Phpmyadmin (optional)
13. Sequel Pro settings for MySQL
14. Extra
15. Installing PHP 5.5 and Apache 2.4 with FastCGI
16. Troubleshooting and issues
17. Connection timeout
18. SSH command responded with a non-zero exit status
19. Corrupted JS/CSS
20. Other issues

Recommendations

1. Mac OS X or Linux
2. Simple knowledge of web servers
3. WordPress projects under the same folder
4. dudestack in use

Installation on Mac/Linux

1. Install Virtualbox
2. Start Virtualbox, check updates and install all the latest versions of Virtualbox and Oracle VM Virtualbox Extension Pack, if asked
3. Install vagrant (Mac OS X Homebrew: brew install vagrant)
4. Install vagrant-triggers with command vagrant plugin install vagrant-triggers
5. Install VirtualBox Guest Additions -updater vagrant-vbguest with command vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest
6. Clone this repo to your Projects directory (path ~/Projects/jolliest-vagrant is depedant in dudestack)
7. (Optional, do this for example if you want to use other image or encounter problems with included Vagrantfile) If you don't know or don't care, don't do this step. Modify Vagrantfile: config.vm.box and config.vm.box_url to match your production server OS, config.vm.network for IP (I recommend it to be 10.1.2.3 to prevent collisions with other subnets) (For Linux you need to remove , :mount_options... if problems occur with starting the server. Please remove parts that give you errors). If you don't need to access server from LAN with co-workers to update WordPress for example, remove completely line with config.vm.network "public_network". You may also need to try different ports than 80 and 443 if your Mac blocks them. For example change the ports to 8080 and 443 (also change triggers accordingly)
8. If you store your projects in different folder than ~/Projects, change the correct path to config.vm.synced_folder
9. Edit or add packages to match your production server packages in provision.sh if needed (it's good out of the box though)
10. Add 10.1.2.3 somesite.dev to your /etc/hosts
11. Run vagrant up --provision. This can take a moment.

If you make any changes to Vagrantfile, run vagrant reload or vagrant up --provision if the server is not running, or if you change provision.sh while running, run vagrant provision.

You can always see the apache status by vagrant ssh'ing to your vagrant box and typing sudo service apache2 status. If it's not started, run sudo service apache2 start.

Installation on Windows

1. Install Virtualbox for Windows
2. Install Vagrant for Windows
3. Install Git for Windows
4. Right click My Computer (or This Compu ter on Windows 10), click Properties, click Advaned System Settings tab, click Environment Variables. Change VBOX_MSI_INSTALL_PATH to VBOX_INSTALL_PATH. In Windows 10, you can go to Advanced System Settings simply typing it when Start Menu is open.
5. Start cmd
6. Navigate to root of C:\ with double dots ..
7. mkdir Projects to create a project dir and cd Projects to enter it
8. Clone this repo to Projects with command git clone git@github.com:digitoimistodude/jolliest-vagrant.git
9. Edit Vagrantfile with your favorite editor and rename ~/Projects to C:/Projects. Remove , :mount_options => ['nolock,vers=3,udp,actimeo=2']
10. Run vagrant up --provision, wait when box is installed and Allow access if it asks it. This can take a moment.
11. Add 10.1.2.3 somesite.dev to your C:/Windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts file and have fun!

Post-installations

Since I want to make this as simple as possible and this will be the single VM for multiple projects that does not need to change much over time, I want extra stuff to be installed manually. Also, the cleaner the better, besides, what is more fun than installing and configurating things?

1. Make sure you are in your vagrant directory (cd ~/Projects/jolliest-vagrant) and SSH into your vagrant box by vagrant ssh
2. You may want to remove the default "It works!" -page. Do this by rm /var/www/index.html
3. If you want to check that everything is okay and the folders are linked successfully, you can go to public folder by cd /var/www/ and ls, then you should see all your projects and a directory listing when you go to localhost with your browser.

1. Installing FastCGI

Another speed improving trick is to use FastCGI as Server API instead of the default Apache Handler. This is based on HowtoForge's article:

1. sudo apt-get -y install apache2-mpm-worker libapache2-mod-fastcgi php5-fpm php5

2. sudo a2enmod actions fastcgi alias

3. sudo pico -w /etc/apache2/conf.d/php5-fpm.conf

    <IfModule mod_fastcgi.c>
        AddHandler php5-fcgi .php
        Action php5-fcgi /php5-fcgi
        Alias /php5-fcgi /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi
        FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi -host 127.0.0.1:9000 -pass-header Authorization
    </IfModule>
   

4. sudo service apache2 restart

5. sudo echo "<?php phpinfo();" > /var/www/info.php

6. Now you should see FPM/FastCGI in the third row "Server API" when you go to 10.1.2.3/info.php

2. Installing Alternative PHP cache

Alternative PHP cache speeds up PHP processing. This tutorial is based on Digital Ocean's article:

1. sudo apt-get -y install php-pear php5-dev make libpcre3-dev

2. sudo pecl install apc, choose or press return when asked (enter and accept every possible step with their defaults)

3. sudo pico -w /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini (normally /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini, but we are using fpm), scroll all the way down and add to the last line:

    extension = apc.so
    apc.shm_size = 64
    apc.stat = 0
   

4. sudo cp /usr/share/php/apc.php /var/www and sudo service apache2 restart && sudo service php5-fpm restart

5. You should now see APC info when you go to 10.1.2.3/apc.php with your browser

3. More speed with configs

I have attached confs folder which includes custom my.cnf and php.ini for you to tweak on.

1. (Optional) Customize configs further
2. SSH into your vagrant box (cd ~/Projects/jolliest-vagrant && vagrant ssh)
3. Run command sudo cp /vagrant/confs/my.cnf /etc/mysql/my.cnf && sudo cp /vagrant/confs/php.ini /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini
4. Run proper restarts sudo service apache2 restart && sudo service php5-fpm restart && sudo service mysql restart
5. Config update done! If you want to edit configs later, SSH into vagrant and edit them directly with nano, for example nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf etc.

How to add new vhost

It's simple to manage multiple projects with apache's sites-enabled configs. If your project name is jolly, and located in ~/Projects/jolly, just add new config to vhosts. vhosts/jolly.dev.conf would then be:

<VirtualHost *:80>

  ServerAdmin webmaster@jolly
  ServerName  jolly.dev
  ServerAlias www.jolly.dev
  DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
  DocumentRoot /var/www/jolly
  LogLevel warn
  ErrorLog  /var/www/jolly/error.log
  CustomLog /var/www/jolly/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Run vagrant provision and boom! http://jolly.dev points to your project file.

How to remove a project or vhost

If you remove a project from Projects folder, or rename it, you should also remove/rename vhosts/projectname.dev.conf correspondingly and make sure after vagrant ssh you don't have that conf to point nonexisting files in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled and /etc/apache2/sites-available. Otherwise the server (apache) wont' start!

For example, if we create test project to ~/Projects/test and then remove the folder, next time you are starting up apache fails. You will have to vagrant ssh and sudo rm /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/test.dev.conf && sudo rm /etc/apache2/sites-available/test.dev.conf && /vagrant/vhosts/test.dev.conf.

Connecting with another computer in LAN

You should be good to go after setting up /etc/hosts to 192.168.2.242 jolly.dev (depending on your local subnet of course) on remote computer. If you have problems like I had, run this command on your vagrant host PC (not inside vagrant ssh!):

sudo ssh -p 2222 -gNfL 80:localhost:80 vagrant@localhost -i ~/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key

This also helps in some cases where you are unable to open http://localhost in browser window.

Port forwarding (optional)

Vagrantfile has port forwarding included, but Mac OS X has some limitations. If .dev-urls are not reachable from local area network, please add this to /usr/bin/forwardports by sudo nano /usr/bin/forwardports:

echo "
rdr pass on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to 127.0.0.1 port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8080
rdr pass on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to 127.0.0.1 port 443 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8443
" | sudo pfctl -f - > /dev/null 2>&1;

echo "==> Fowarding Ports: 80 -> 8080, 443 -> 8443";

osascript -e 'tell application "Terminal" to quit' & exit;

Chmod it by chmod +x /usr/bin/forwardports and run forwardports. You have to do this every time after reboot, if you are co-working in LAN.

SSL / HTTPS (optional)

If you need to use HTTPS-protocol, you will need your own certificate.

Create a self-signed SSL Certificate for jolliest-vagrant

1. Go to the directory you cloned this repo by cd ~/Projects/jolliest-vagrant
2. Make sure you are in your vagrant directory (cd ~/Projects/jolliest-vagrant) and SSH into your vagrant box: vagrant ssh
3. sudo a2enmod ssl to enable SSL
4. openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024
5. openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
6. cp server.key server.key.org
7. openssl rsa -in server.key.org -out server.key
8. openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt
9. sudo cp server.key /etc/apache2/ssl.key
10. sudo cp server.crt /etc/apache2/ssl.crt

Exit SSH and update your site vhost in ~/Projects/jolliest-vagrant/vhosts/vhostname.dev.conf by adding this

<VirtualHost *:443>  
  ServerAdmin webmaster@example
  ServerName  example.dev
  ServerAlias www.example.dev
  DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
  DocumentRoot /var/www/example
  LogLevel warn
  ErrorLog  /var/www/example/error.log
  CustomLog /var/www/example/access.log combined

  SSLEngine on
  SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crt
  SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl.key
  SetEnvIf User-Agent ".*MSIE.*" nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown
</VirtualHost>

11. vagrant provision and you should be able to navigate to https://example.dev and start developing.

Please note: You can only have one SSL project in the same time, so move VirtualHost entry to the other project conf when you are switching projects.

Installing Phpmyadmin (optional)

If you use Mac OS X I recommend Sequel Pro, but in other cases phpmyadmin comes pretty handy. Based on Digital Ocean's tutorial.

1. Go to the directory you cloned this repo by cd ~/Projects/jolliest-vagrant
2. Make sure you are in your vagrant directory (cd ~/Projects/jolliest-vagrant) and SSH into your vagrant box: vagrant ssh
3. Install phpmyadmin with sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin apache2-utils
4. Choose apache2 when asked, choose yes in the next question about dbconfig-common
5. Type vagrant every time when a password is asked
6. sudo pico -w /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and add Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf to the bottom
7. Restart apache with sudo service apache2 restart
8. Now you can access your phpmyadmin in localhost/phpmyadmin (if not, make sure you have 10.1.2.3 localhost added to your /etc/hosts (on your PC, NOT in vagrant ssh) and you have invoked the ssh LAN command.

Extra

Installing PHP 5.5 and Apache 2.4 with FastCGI

If you need newer PHP version, this box doesn't provide it out of the box, because you will also have to upgrade Apache 2.4. This have to be done as post installation (for now). Make sure you are inside the vagrant box (command vagrant ssh inside vagrant installation folder ~/Projects/jolliest-vagrant).

Please note: I warn you, this setup is not very straightforward, although I had to do it once and I have written a tutorial for you below. This could take time though and if you need newer stuff, please consider another Vagrant box. I might create a newer box later on when our production server is updated, but for now it is what it is.

First upgdare Apache 2.2 to 2.4 (based on this tutorial):

1. Backup existing configs (if you have any) with sudo cp -R /etc/apache2 ~/apache2.2.backup
2. Backup existing mods list with cd /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/ && sudo ls -al > ~/enabled-mods.txt
3. Stop apache: sudo service apache2 stop
4. Remove apache2 files: sudo rm -r /etc/apache2
5. Remove existing apache: sudo apt-get remove apache2 && sudo apt-get remove apache2* && sudo apt-get purge apache2 apache2-utils apache2.2-bin apache2-common && sudo apt-get autoremove
6. Add repository: sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ondrej/php5 (if you get command not found, run sudo apt-get install python-sofware-properties and try again)
7. Update: sudo apt-get update
8. Install apache 2.4: sudo apt-get install apache2, select Y on Y or I : install the package maintainer's version and check install the package maintainer's version when asked
9. Check out your previous modules by cat /home/vagrant/enabled-mods.txt
10. cd /etc/apache2/mods-enabled and sudo ls -al, compare these two outputs and check out which modules are missing
11. Enable mods one by one with these commands: sudo cp /home/vagrant/apache2.2.backup/mods-available/dir.load /etc/apache2/mods-available/ sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/dir.conf sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/dir.load sudo cp /home/vagrant/apache2.2.backup/mods-available/alias.load /etc/apache2/mods-available/ sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/alias.conf sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/alias.load sudo cp /home/vagrant/apache2.2.backup/mods-available/authn_file.load /etc/apache2/mods-available/ sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/authn_file.load sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/authz_groupfile.load sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/authz_user.load sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/autoindex.conf sudo cp /home/vagrant/apache2.2.backup/mods-available/autoindex.load /etc/apache2/mods-available/ sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/autoindex.load sudo cp /home/vagrant/apache2.2.backup/mods-available/cgid.load /etc/apache2/mods-available/ sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/cgid.conf sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/cgid.load sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/deflate.conf sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/deflate.load sudo cp /home/vagrant/apache2.2.backup/mods-available/env.load /etc/apache2/mods-available/ sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/env.load sudo cp /home/vagrant/apache2.2.backup/mods-available/fastcgi* /etc/apache2/mods-available/ sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/fastcgi.conf sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/fastcgi.load sudo cp /home/vagrant/apache2.2.backup/mods-available/mime.load /etc/apache2/mods-available/ sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/mime.conf sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/mime.load sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/reqtimeout.conf sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/setenvif.conf sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/ssl.conf sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/ssl.load sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/status.conf sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/socache_shmcb.load
12. Copy default config in place with sudo cp /home/vagrant/apache2.2.backup/sites-available/default /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
13. Enable mod_rewrite: sudo a2enmod rewrite

If you encounter any problems, try reinstalling with sudo dpkg -P apache2 and sudo apt-get install apache2 or/and try debugging errors again.

Don't restart apache yet, go straght to this step. Here's the clean way to install PHP 5.5 on Ubuntu 12.04 (based on this):

1. Run sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ondrej/apache2
2. Update repos with sudo apt-get update
3. Install PHP 5.5: sudo apt-get install php5-common php5-mysqlnd php5-xmlrpc php5-curl php5-gd php5-cli php5-fpm php-pear php5-dev php5-imap php5-mcrypt
4. Select Y on Y or I : install the package maintainer's version and check install the package maintainer's version when asked
5. Check that it's 5.5 with php -v
6. Install fpm for 5.5 with sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-fastcgi
7. Enable php5-fpm by sudo a2enconf php5-fpm && a2enmod actions fastcgi alias
8. Edit & add following: pico -w /etc/apache2/conf-available/php5-fpm.conf (according to helpful tip here:

<IfModule mod_fastcgi.c>
    AddHandler php5-fcgi .php
    Action php5-fcgi /php5-fcgi
    Alias /php5-fcgi /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi
    FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi -socket /var/run/php5-fpm.sock -pass-header Authorization

    # NOTE: using '/usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-cgi' here does not work, 
    #   it doesn't exist in the filesystem!
    <Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</Ifmodule>

If you get internal server error or 404 not found with pretty links, add this to /etc/apache2/apache2.conf (find existing similar lines and remove them):

<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all denied
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Restart apache and FPM with sudo service apache2 restart && sudo service php5-fpm restart. Exit vagrant ssh and run vagrant reload && vagrant provision in Vagrant directory end check out possible errors. Otherwise everything should be good!

Troubleshooting and issues

Connection timeout

==> default: Waiting for machine to boot. This may take a few minutes...
    default: SSH address: 127.0.0.1:2222
    default: SSH username: vagrant
    default: SSH auth method: private key
    default: Error: Connection timeout. Retrying...
    default: Error: Connection timeout. Retrying...
    default: Error: Connection timeout. Retrying...
    default: Error: Connection timeout. Retrying...
    ...

If you encounter this very bizarre issue,

1. probably something is blocking your ports. Please try to change auto_correct to false to see if it's about ports. If it is, change guest port to 8080 or some random number over 1024. Then, change port forwarding settings from 8080 -> 80 or from any port number you specified in guest port section.

2. you have probably messed up with your SSH configs. Please ensure you have set up your SSH precicely with Bitbucket's "Set up SSH for Git" before setting up vagrant.

3. The best is to vagrant destroy or remove all traces of vagrant and try from scratch.

4. Also, you may want to disable nfs and mount_options in your Vagrantfile. That helped me two times.

5. Try to boot your vm manually using Virtualbox, or add v.gui = true inside config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |v| and see if that produces any errors.

6. Open an issue to issue tracker so we can test and discuss this further.

Earlier this issue was caused because I used 64bit image. On Mac OS X there seems to be problems with virtualization in 64bit environments. Today my vagrant box uses precise32 instead of precise64 and this change has fixed this issue for good. If you still encounter issues with SSH, please let me know.

SSH command responded with a non-zero exit status

==> default: Checking for guest additions in VM...
==> default: Configuring and enabling network interfaces...
The following SSH command responded with a non-zero exit status.
Vagrant assumes that this means the command failed!

/sbin/ifdown eth1 2> /dev/null

Stdout from the command:



Stderr from the command:

stdin: is not a tty

This is related to the timeout / SSH issue. Please reproduce the same steps in Connection timeout section.

Corrupted JS/CSS

VirtualBox had a bug which may cause a file corruption. Adding EnableSendfile off to /etc/apache2/httpd.conf should fix this.

Other issues

In any issue, error or trouble, please open an issue to issue tracker.

Sequel Pro settings for MySQL

Choose SSH tab and add following settings.

Setting	Input field
Name:	vagrant mysql
MySQL Host:	127.0.0.1
Username:	root
Password:	vagrant
Database:	optional
Port:	3306
SSH Host:	10.1.2.3
SSH User:	vagrant
SSH Password:	vagrant
SSH Port:	22