I’m in search of the perfect development environment. It’s something that runs anywhere (Windows, OSX, Linux), runs a complete production ready stack, is a doddle to set up, can be completely packed into version control and delivered to a friend at a moment’s notice.

I want something:

  • portable
  • mirrors production
  • re-created with a couple of commands
  • GIT friendly
  • always distributable

What follows is a blow by blow guide, built to help the Daemonites improve their development process. Daemon creates and manages large bespoke CFML solutions for many different clients. Each development environment is often quite elaborate and getting set up to contribute to a project can take a fair bit of mucking around… until now.

The Tools

The workbench is based on having a number of development tools in place:

  • Virtualbox for virtual servers
  • Vagrant for managing virtual servers
  • Ruby for fairy dust
  • Chef for cooking up infrastructure via code
  • Berkshelf for Chef cookbook and recipe management

The Stack

For the sake of the guide, I’m going with a completely open source stack, with a sample, database-driven web application:

  • Ubuntu Precise 64 cloud instance
  • Apache (web server)
  • Tomcat6 (Java servlet container)
  • Railo (open source CFML application engine)
  • mySQL (database platform)
  • FarCry CMS (open source publishing platform for CFML)

The Vagrant Workbench Guide

First we get to grips with Vagrant and VirtualBox; this combo provides a myriad of server operating environments from linux to windows.

Next use Chef for provisioning our virtual machines; coding up the automated installation of our application and all the apps it needs to function properly.

Many thanks to Jamie Winsor for potent coding skills and the awesome cookbook guide that got me started.