# Vagrant environment setup (in brief)

Start by cloning this repository: `git clone https://github.com/zulip/zulip.git`

This is the recommended approach for all platforms, and will install
the Zulip development environment inside a VM or container and works
on any platform that supports Vagrant.

The best performing way to run the Zulip development environment is
using an LXC container on a Linux host, but we support other platforms
such as Mac via Virtualbox (but everything will be 2-3x slower).

* If your host is Ubuntu 15.04 or newer, you can install and configure
  the LXC Vagrant provider directly using apt:
  ```
  sudo apt-get install vagrant lxc lxc-templates cgroup-lite redir
  vagrant plugin install vagrant-lxc
  ```
  You may want to [configure sudo to be passwordless when using Vagrant LXC][avoiding-sudo].

* If your host is Ubuntu 14.04, you will need to [download a newer
  version of Vagrant][vagrant-dl], and then do the following:
  ```
  sudo apt-get install lxc lxc-templates cgroup-lite redir
  sudo dpkg -i vagrant*.deb # in directory where you downloaded vagrant
  vagrant plugin install vagrant-lxc
  ```
  You may want to [configure sudo to be passwordless when using Vagrant LXC][avoiding-sudo].

* For other Linux hosts with a kernel above 3.12, [follow the Vagrant
  LXC installation instructions][vagrant-lxc] to get Vagrant with LXC
  for your platform.

* If your host is OS X or older Linux, [download Vagrant][vagrant-dl]
  and [VirtualBox][vbox-dl].  Or, instead of Virtualbox you can use
  [VMWare Fusion][vmware-fusion-dl] with the [VMWare vagrant
  provider][vagrant-vmware-fusion-dl] for a nonfree option with better
  performance.

* On Windows: You can use Vagrant and Virtualbox/VMWare on Windows
  with Cygwin, similar to the Mac setup.  Be sure to create your git
  clone using `git clone https://github.com/zulip/zulip.git -c
  core.autocrlf=false` to avoid Windows line endings being added to
  files (this causes weird errors).

[vagrant-dl]: https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html
[vagrant-lxc]: https://github.com/fgrehm/vagrant-lxc
[vbox-dl]: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
[vmware-fusion-dl]: http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion.html
[vagrant-vmware-fusion-dl]: https://www.vagrantup.com/vmware/
[avoiding-sudo]: https://github.com/fgrehm/vagrant-lxc#avoiding-sudo-passwords

Once that's done, simply change to your zulip directory and run
`vagrant up` in your terminal to install the development server.  This
will take a long time on the first run because Vagrant needs to
download the Ubuntu Trusty base image, but later you can run `vagrant
destroy` and then `vagrant up` again to rebuild the environment and it
will be much faster.

Once that finishes, you can run the development server as follows:

```
vagrant ssh
# Now inside the container
/srv/zulip/tools/run-dev.py
```

To get shell access to the virtual machine running the server to run
lint, management commands, etc., use `vagrant ssh`.

At this point you should [read about using the development
environment][using-dev].

[using-dev]: using-dev-environment.html

### Specifying a proxy

If you need to use a proxy server to access the Internet, you will
need to specify the proxy settings before running `Vagrant up`.
First, install the Vagrant plugin `vagrant-proxyconf`:

```
vagrant plugin install vagrant-proxyconf.
```

Then create `~/.zulip-vagrant-config` and add the following lines to
it (with the appropriate values in it for your proxy):

```
HTTP_PROXY http://proxy_host:port
HTTPS_PROXY http://proxy_host:port
NO_PROXY localhost,127.0.0.1,.example.com
```

Now run `vagrant up` in your terminal to install the development
server. If you ran `vagrant up` before and failed, you'll need to run
`vagrant destroy` first to clean up the failed installation.

You can also change the port on the host machine that Vagrant uses by
adding to your `~/.zulip-vagrant-config` file.  E.g. if you set:

```
HOST_PORT 9971
```

(and halt and restart the Vagrant guest), then you would visit
http://localhost:9971/ to connect to your development server.