Configure

Configure environment variables

Before starting the automated build of a Linux VM, it is important to properly configure several environment variables in your Windows, Mac, or Linux terminals. These variables are crucial as they determine the operating system you will use (CentOS Linux, Ubuntu Linux, Amazon Linux, Alma Linux, or Rocky Linux), the processor architecture (AMD64 or ARM64), the edition (server or desktop), and the hypervisor (VirtualBox or VMware) for the Linux VM deployment.

Supported environment variables

# Allowed values for $OS_NAME variable.
* centos-linux-7
* ubuntu-linux-18-04
* ubuntu-linux-22-04
* amazon-linux-2
* alma-linux-8
* alma-linux-9
* rocky-linux-8
* rocky-linux-9

# Allowed values for $OS_ARCHITECTURE variable.
* amd64
* arm64

# Allowed values for $OS_EDITION variable.
* server
* desktop

# Allowed values for $HYPERVISOR variable.
* virtualbox
* vmware

Set environment variables

In this section, we will set environment variables for building, deploying, and automating the Ubuntu Linux 22.04 AMD64 server operating system using the VirtualBox hypervisor. Similarly, these environment variables can be adjusted to automate the virtual machine deployment for various Linux distributions and versions, as mentioned earlier.

# Store environment variables.
$ export OS_NAME=ubuntu-linux-22-04
$ export OS_ARCHITECTURE=amd64
$ export OS_EDITION=server
$ export HYPERVISOR=virtualbox
$ export VAGRANT_CONF_DIR=./vagrant/$OS_NAME/$HYPERVISOR/$OS_ARCHITECTURE/$OS_EDITION