Vagrant Cheatsheet - VM Init, Up, SSH & Provisioning

Prefer vagrant reload: it restarts the machine and re-reads the Vagrantfile while keeping the data on disk. To re-run provisioning scripts, use vagrant provision, or scope it to one provisioner with --provision-with shell. vagrant suspend and vagrant resume are the fastest pair for closing the laptop and picking work back up. vagrant destroy wipes the machine and every change in it, so reserve it for deliberate clean slates. For a read-only check use vagrant status, or vagrant global-status to see every Vagrant environment on the machine at once.

The first vagrant up downloads the box image and runs a full provision pass that installs dependencies and initialises the machine; every later boot reuses that on-disk state and is ready in seconds. The cost is a slow first run plus a locally dirty environment: after editing a template you must reload or re-provision manually. When repeated rebuilds get expensive, store a clean baseline with vagrant snapshot save my-snapshot and return to it any time via vagrant snapshot restore my-snapshot. Review them with vagrant snapshot list and delete the ones you no longer need.

Name each machine with config.vm.define: config.vm.define "web" do |web| web.vm.box = "ubuntu/jammy64" end and config.vm.define "db" do |db| db.vm.box = "ubuntu/jammy64" end. Then vagrant up web boots just that machine and vagrant ssh web logs into it, while omitting the name starts everything. Cross-machine access is handled by the network config: config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 80, host: 8080 publishes a guest port on the host, and vagrant port shows the active mapping. For a stable address use config.vm.network "private_network", ip: "192.168.33.10".

The default VirtualBox shared folder performs badly with many small files, exactly what npm install and pip install generate. Switching with config.vm.synced_folder "./src", "/var/www", type: "nfs" routes traffic through NFS and is typically far quicker. Trim the surface with config.vm.synced_folder "./data", "/data", disabled: true so large trees are not mounted at all. Size the machine itself in the same config.vm.provider "virtualbox" block: vb.memory = "2048" and vb.cpus = 2, so the VM has enough headroom before you install anything. You can also run vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest to keep Guest Additions current.

Export it: vagrant package --output my-box.box bundles the current VM into a box file, and a teammate installs it locally with vagrant box add my-box ./package.box before pointing their project at it. Tidy your box inventory first with vagrant box list, check vagrant box outdated for newer versions, refresh one with vagrant box update --box ubuntu/jammy64, and reclaim space with vagrant box remove for anything unused. Keep the Vagrantfile and provision scripts under version control as the source of truth — the packaged box is a snapshot of the environment, and both together are what guarantee your colleague gets the same setup.