Get Started with a Published Box

This tutorial walks you through your first successful Vagrant workflow using a published box.

Goal

Start an Ubuntu VM from published box metadata, connect to it with Vagrant, and clean it up when you are done.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have:

• Vagrant installed
• The provider you want to use already installed on your host
• Access to a published metadata.json URL for one of the boxes

This example uses the ubuntu-noble box name and the libvirt provider. Replace these with the box and provider you want to use.

Step 1: Add the Box from Metadata

Add the box using its metadata file:

vagrant box add https://<host>/electrocucaracha-boxes/ubuntu-noble/metadata.json

Vagrant reads the metadata file and selects the provider-specific artifact for the provider you use later.

Step 2: Create a Working Directory

Create a directory for your environment and initialize it:

mkdir noble-demo
cd noble-demo
vagrant init electrocucaracha-boxes/ubuntu-noble

This creates a Vagrantfile that points to the box name from the metadata.

Step 3: Start the Environment

Start the Vagrant environment:

vagrant up --provider=libvirt

Step 4: Connect to the VM

Once the environment is running, connect to the VM:

vagrant ssh

Step 5: Clean Up

When you’re done, clean up the environment:

vagrant destroy