Tool for command line virtual machines
Project description
mech
Newly added virtualbox functionality. Please test and provide any feedback/issues.
By default, the provider will be vmware
.
There is --help
on every operation.
mech --help
Usage: mech [options] <command> [<args>...]
Options:
-v, --version Print the version and exit.
-h, --help Print this help.
--debug Show debug messages.
Common commands:
box manages boxes: add, list remove, etc.
destroy stops and deletes all traces of the instances
(down|stop|halt) stops the instances
global-status outputs status of all virutal machines on this host
init initializes a new Mech environment by creating a Mechfile
ip outputs ip of an instance
(list|ls) lists all available boxes
pause pauses the instances
port displays information about guest port mappings
provision provisions the Mech machine
ps list running processes for an instance
reload restarts Mech machine, loads new Mechfile configuration
resume resume a paused/suspended Mech machine
scp copies files to/from the machine via SCP
snapshot manages snapshots: save, list, remove, etc.
ssh connects to an instance via SSH
ssh-config outputs OpenSSH valid configuration to connect to the instances
status outputs status of the instances
suspend suspends the instances
(up|start) starts instances (aka virtual machines)
upgrade upgrade the instances
For help on any individual command run `mech <command> -h`
Example:
mech up --help
mech up --help
% mech up --help
Starts and provisions the mech environment.
Usage: mech up [options] [<instance>]
Notes:
- If no instance is specified, all instances will be started.
- The options (memsize, numvcpus, and no-nat) will only be applied
upon first run of the 'up' command.
- The 'no-nat' option will only be applied if there is no network
interface supplied in the box file.
- Unless 'disable-shared-folders' is used, a default read/write
share called "mech" will be mounted from the current directory.
(ex: '/mnt/hgfs/mech' on guest will have the file "Mechfile".)
To change shared folders, modify the Mechfile directly.
- The 'remove-vagrant' option will remove the vagrant account from the
guest VM which is what 'mech' uses to communicate with the VM.
Be sure you can connect/admin the instance before using this option.
Options:
--disable-provisioning Do not provision
--disable-shared-folders Do not share folders with VM
--gui Start GUI
--memsize 1024 Specify the size of memory for VM
--no-cache Do not save the downloaded box
--no-nat Do not use NAT network (i.e., bridged)
--numvcpus 1 Specify the number of vcpus for VM
-h, --help Print this help
-r, --remove-vagrant Remove vagrant user
Example using mech
Initializing and using a machine from HashiCorp's Vagrant Cloud:
mech init bento/ubuntu-18.04
mech up
mech ssh
mech init
can be used to pull a box file which will be installed and
generate a Mechfile in the current directory. You can also pull boxes
from Vagrant Cloud with mech init freebsd/FreeBSD-11.1-RELEASE
.
See the mech up -h
page for more information.
Can have multiple instances of the same box. The default instance name is 'first'.
Here is the help info for adding a new instance:
mech add --help
% mech add -h
Add instance to the Mechfile.
Usage: mech add [options] <name> <location>
Example box: bento/ubuntu-18.04
Notes:
- The 'add-me' option will add the currently logged in user to the guest,
add the same user to sudoers, and add the id_rsa.pub key to the authorized_hosts file
for that user.
Options:
-a, --add-me Add the current host user/pubkey to guest
--box BOXNAME Name of the box (ex: bento/ubuntu-18.04)
--box-version VERSION Constrain version of the added box
-h, --help Print this help
-p, --provider PROVIDER Provider ('vmware' or 'virtualbox')
-u, --use-me Use the current user for mech interactions
mech list
Here is what it would look like having multiple instance with different providers:
% mech list
NAME ADDRESS BOX VERSION PROVIDER
fifth notcreated bento/ubuntu-18.04 202002.04.0 virtualbox
first 192.168.3.231 bento/ubuntu-18.04 201912.04.0 vmware
fourth 192.168.56.134 bento/ubuntu-18.04 202002.04.0 virtualbox
second notcreated mrlesmithjr/alpine311 1578437753 vmware
third notcreated bento/ubuntu-18.04 201912.04.0 vmware
Installation
To install:
pip install -U mikemech
or for the latest:
pip install -U git+https://github.com/mkinney/mech.git
Shared Folders
If the box you init was created properly, you will be able to access
the host's current working directory in /mnt/hgfs/mech
. If you are
having trouble try running:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) open-vm-tools
followed by
sudo vmware-config-tools.pl
or
vmhgfs-fuse .host:/mech /mnt/hgfs
Changing vcpus and/or memory size (vmware only)
If you do not specify how many vcpus or memory, then the values in the .box file will be used. To override, use appropriate settings:
mech up --numvcpus 2 --memsize 1024
Want zsh completion for commands/options (aka "tab completion")?
- add these lines to ~/.zshrc
# folder of all of your autocomplete functions
fpath=($HOME/.zsh-completions $fpath)
# enable autocomplete function
autoload -U compinit
compinit
- Copy script to something in fpath (Note: Run
echo $fpath
to show value.)
cp _mech ~/.zsh-completions/
- Reload zsh
exec zsh
- Try it out by typing
mech <tab>
. It should show the options available.
Want bash completion for commands/options (aka "tab completion")?
- add these lines to ~/.bash_profile
[ -f /usr/local/etc/bash_completion ] && . /usr/local/etc/bash_completion
- Copy script to path above
cp mech_completion.sh /usr/local/etc/bash_completion/
- Reload .bash_profile
source ~/.bash_profile
- Try it out by typing
mech <tab>
. It should show the options available.
Background
One of the authors made this because they don't like VirtualBox and wanted to use vagrant with VMmare Fusion but was too cheap to buy the Vagrant plugin.
https://blog.kchung.co/mech-vagrant-with-vmware-integration-for-free/
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