vermin

README

The smart virtual machines manager (star the project if you find it useful)

Table of Contents:

• What is Vermin
• Install Vermin
• Usage
• Contributors
• Why not Vagrant
• TODO

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What is Vermin

Vermin is a smart, simple and powerful command line tool for Linux, Windows and macOS. It's designed for developers/tester and others working in IT who want a fresh VM environment with a single command. It uses VirtualBox to run the VM. Vermin will fetch images on your behalf.

You can look to Vermina as a modern CLI for Vagrant Boxes.

Vermin can be used when you need an easy way to obtain a Linux environment up and running in minutes. For example:

• If you want to have an environment to try .NET Core and you don't want to mess with your local own WSL installation.
• If you want to try to install a Kafka cluster, and you need something more than just a docker container.

Vermin in Action:

• Install CockroachDB cluster in a Virtual Machine
• Install Redis inside Ubuntu VM
• Install Kubernetes cluster in Virtual Machines the easy way
• Install Desktop environment on Ubuntu Server

Also, you can check Why not Vagrant section.

Install Vermin

Vermin uses VirtualBox as the underlying hypervisor to create and run Virtual Machines. So you need to download and install it first.

To install/update on macos and linux run:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mhewedy/vermin/master/install.sh)"

To install/update on windows (PowerShell) run:

# Should run as Adminstarator
iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mhewedy/vermin/master/install.ps1'))

Usage:

Create, control and connect to VirtualBox VM instances

Usage:
  vermin [command]

Examples:

You can use vermin by creating a VM from an image.

To list all images available:
$ vermin images

Then you can create a vm using:
$ vermin create <image>


Available Commands:
  commit      Commit a VM into a new Image
  completion  Generates shell completion scripts
  cp          Copy files/folders between a VM and the local filesystem or between two VMs
  create      Create a new VM
  exec        Run a command in a running VM
  gui         open the GUI for the VM
  help        Help about any command
  images      List remote and cached images
  ip          Show IP address for a running VM
  mount       Mount local filesystem inside the VM
  port        Forward port(s) from a VM to host
  ps          List VMs
  restart     Restart one or more VMs
  rm          Remove one or more VM
  ssh         ssh into a running VM
  start       Start one or more stopped VMs
  stop        Stop one or more running VMs
  tag         Add or remove tag to a VM
  update      Update configuration of a VM

Flags:
  -h, --help      help for vermin
  -v, --version   version for vermin

Use "vermin [command] --help" for more information about a command.

You can start using vermin after installation using:

$ vermin create <image name> | vagrant/<vagrant image>
# example using vagrant image
$ vermin create vagrant/hashicorp/bionic64

vermin collect very simple usage data anonymously

For more info on the usage options see vermin documentations website.

Why not Vagrant:

• Vagrant uses a Vagrantfile which I think is most suited to be source-controlled inside git , and for some use case it is an overhead to create and maintain such file. In such cases Vermin come to the rescue.
• In Vagrant, any chagne you need to make to the VM you need to reload the VM (stop/start). In Vermin most of the changes on the VM is done while the VM is Running.
• Vermin is a single binary file that can be easily installed and upgraded.
• It is important to note that, starting from version v0.94.0 Vermin can smoothly uses Vagrant Cloud images.
• Myself, I look (and try to achieve) to Vermin as a modern CLI (like docker/podman) for Vagrant Boxes.

Contributors

Special thanks to Ahmed Samir for contributing the logo.

TODO

See TODO.md