Vagrant OEL 8 DevOps · VirtualBox · Box Distribution

Vagrant — Publishing Boxes to Vagrant Cloud

Publish custom OEL 8 Vagrant boxes to Vagrant Cloud. Create accounts, publish versions, manage private team boxes and handle versioning.

Vagrant Cloud — Publishing Boxes

Vagrant Cloud (app.vagrantup.com) is HashiCorp's hosted box registry. You can publish your custom OEL 8 boxes to Vagrant Cloud to share with your team — eliminating the need to manually distribute .box files. Team members simply do vagrant box add your-org/oel8-db and get the exact same environment.

Step 1 — Create Vagrant Cloud Account

BASH — Create Account

# Go to: https://app.vagrantup.com/account/new
# Create account (free tier available)

# Login from CLI
vagrant login

# Or set token environment variable
export VAGRANT_CLOUD_TOKEN="your-token-here"

# Verify login
vagrant cloud auth login
vagrant cloud auth whoami

Step 2 — Create a Box on Vagrant Cloud

BASH — Create Box

# Create box via CLI
vagrant cloud box create your-username/oel8-db --short-description "OEL 8 Database Lab Box"

# Or via Web UI:
# 1. Login to app.vagrantup.com
# 2. Click "New Vagrant Box"
# 3. Enter: name, description, visibility (public/private)
# 4. Click "Create Box"

Step 3 — Publish a Version

BASH — Publish Box

# Create a version
vagrant cloud version create your-username/oel8-db 1.0.0   --description "Initial release with MySQL prereqs"

# Add provider (VirtualBox)
vagrant cloud provider create your-username/oel8-db virtualbox 1.0.0

# Upload the .box file
vagrant cloud provider upload your-username/oel8-db virtualbox 1.0.0   ./oel8-custom.box

# Release the version (make it available)
vagrant cloud version release your-username/oel8-db 1.0.0

Step 4 — Use Published Box

BASH — Use Published Box

# Anyone on your team can now use:
vagrant box add your-username/oel8-db

# Or in Vagrantfile:
config.vm.box = "your-username/oel8-db"

# Pin to specific version
config.vm.box         = "your-username/oel8-db"
config.vm.box_version = "1.0.0"

# Or always use latest
config.vm.box_version = ">= 1.0.0"

Managing Versions

BASH — Version Management

# List all versions of a box
vagrant cloud box show your-username/oel8-db

# Create new version (after updates)
vagrant cloud version create your-username/oel8-db 1.1.0   --description "Added Oracle 19c prereqs"

vagrant cloud provider create your-username/oel8-db virtualbox 1.1.0
vagrant cloud provider upload your-username/oel8-db virtualbox 1.1.0   ./oel8-v1.1.box
vagrant cloud version release your-username/oel8-db 1.1.0

# Deprecate old version
vagrant cloud version deprecate your-username/oel8-db 1.0.0

# Revoke old version
vagrant cloud version revoke your-username/oel8-db 1.0.0

Private Boxes for Teams

BASH — Private Boxes

# Private boxes require authentication token
# Set token for team members:
export VAGRANT_CLOUD_TOKEN="team-shared-token"
# Or: vagrant login

# In Vagrantfile — private box access is automatic when token is set
config.vm.box = "your-org/oel8-db-private"

# Each team member needs to:
vagrant login   # or set VAGRANT_CLOUD_TOKEN
vagrant up      # downloads private box automatically

Free vs Paid Vagrant Cloud

Feature	Free	Paid
Public boxes	Unlimited	Unlimited
Private boxes	1	Unlimited
Box storage	Limited	Unlimited
Concurrent downloads	Limited	Unlimited
Team access	No	Yes

💡 Note: For team use, consider hosting your own box registry using a simple file server + metadata JSON files instead of Vagrant Cloud. Any web server serving .box files with a metadata JSON works as a private box registry.