This project provides a Vagrant setup with an Ansible playbook for provisioning a virtual machine running Ubuntu 22.04 on ARM architecture provided through VMware-fusion.

The goal is to install and configure Minikube to run with the Podman driver.

• Prerequisites
• Vagrantfile Configuration
• Usage
• Minikube Common Errors and Solutions
• Minikube further Notes / manual steps covered in playbook
• Gitlab-CE on Debian

• Vagrant installed on your system.
• VMware Fusion installed and configured.
• Ansible installed on your system.

VAGRANT
$ brew install vagrant

$ vagrant global-status
# shows which provider has been used to provision the vm

Vagrant Plugins:
Vagrant VMware Utility Installation
$ vagrant plugin list
vagrant-vbguest (0.32.0, global)
vagrant-vmware-desktop (3.0.4, global)

Vagrant Boxes:
https://portal.cloud.hashicorp.com/vagrant/discover
gyptazy_ubuntu22.04-arm64
gutehall/debian12

VMWare-fusion 13 Pro

Broadcom entitlements discussion:
https://community.broadcom.com/discussion/vmware-fusion-13-pro-download-links

Workaround for download of VMWare-fusion without entitlements:
https://williamlam.com/2024/05/no-entitlements-needed-for-these-popular-vmware-downloads-on-broadcom-support-portal-bsp.html

Navigation: My Downloads->VMware Fusion->VMware Fusion Pro for Personal Use
https://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/productfiles?subFamily=VMware%20Fusion&displayGroup=VMware%20Fusion%2013%20Pro%20for%20Personal%20Use&release=13.5.2&os=&servicePk=520445&language=EN

ANSIBLE
$ brew install ansible
brew install ansible failed with: ==> Fetching pkg-config ==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/pkg-config/blobs/sha256:xyz 100.0%
Error: [email protected]: the bottle needs the Apple Command Line Tools to be installed.
You can install them, if desired, with: xcode-select --install ...
xcode-select: note: install requested for command line developer tools
$ xcode-select --install
$ xcode-select -p
$ brew install ansible

(base) x@macOS % ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini playbook.yml
fatal: [ubuntu22.04]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: [email protected]: Permission denied (publickey,password).", "unreachable": true}
fatal: [127.0.0.1]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: no such identity: /gyptazy_ubuntu22.04-arm64/.vagrant/machines/default/vmware_fusion/private_key:
No such file or directory\r\[email protected]: Permission denied (publickey,password).", "unreachable": true}
fatal: [ubuntu22]: FAILED! => {"msg": "to use the 'ssh' connection type with passwords or pkcs11_provider,
you must install the sshpass program"}
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42835626/ansible-to-use-the-ssh-connection-type-with-passwords-you-must-install-the-s
$ brew install hudochenkov/sshpass/sshpass

The following is the configuration used for the Vagrantfile, which sets up the Ubuntu VM and provisions it using Ansible:

# Ubuntu VM Configuration
config.vm.define "ubuntu22" do |ubuntu|
ubuntu.vm.hostname = "ubuntu22"
ubuntu.vm.box = "gyptazy/ubuntu22.04-arm64"
ubuntu.vm.provider "vmware_fusion" do |vb|
vb.memory = 4096
vb.cpus = 2
end
end

config.vm.provision "ansible" do |ansible|
ansible.playbook = "ansible/playbook.yml"
ansible.inventory_path = "ansible/inventory.ini"
end

To provision the VM and install Minikube with Podman, run:

vagrant up

If you make changes to the playbook and want to reapply the provisioning, use:

vagrant provision

Error validating CNI config file /etc/cni/net.d/minikube.conflist: plugin bridge does not support config version "1.0.0"...

• Solution: Refer to GitHub Issue #17754 for more information.

Error: Packages were downgraded and -y was used without --allow-downgrades

• Solution: Modify the playbook to include allow_downgrade: yes and force_apt_get: yes for Podman installation.

Error: The "podman" driver should not be used with root privileges

• Workaround: Ensure that the Minikube command is executed without escalating privileges:

- name: Start Minikube
ansible.builtin.command: minikube start --driver=podman
become: false
become_user: vagrant
environment:
MINIKUBE_HOME: /home/vagrant

• Solution: Update /etc/ssh/sshd_config on the server and include:

IPQoS lowdelay throughput

Manual setup / Teething:

macOS m1 arm64 VMWare, vagrant Ubuntu22.04 VM for arm + minkube

You can manually verify the setup and architecture as follows:
vagrant@vagrant:/usr/local/bin$ arch
aarch64
curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube-linux-arm64
sudo install minikube-linux-arm64 /usr/local/bin/minikube
minikube version
minikube version: v1.34.0
commit: 210b148df93a80eb872ecbeb7e35281b3c582c61

Do You Need Extra Drivers?
Minikube requires a driver to manage virtual machines. Since you're running the Ubuntu VM in VMware, the VM might already have a hypervisor or driver, but Minikube typically uses:

KVM for virtualization on Linux.
Alternatively, you can use the none driver to run Minikube directly on your Ubuntu VM without additional virtualization.
To install KVM and the required dependencies, you can run: ?

sudo apt install -y qemu-kvm libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-clients bridge-utils
sudo usermod -aG libvirt $(whoami)
If you prefer to use the none driver (which runs Kubernetes directly on your VM without creating an additional virtual machine), you can do so with:
minikube start --driver=none
. /etc/os-release
echo "deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/kubic:/libcontainers:/stable/${ID}\_${VERSION\_ID}/ /" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/devel:kubic:libcontainers:stable.list
curl -L "https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/kubic:/libcontainers:/stable/${ID}\_${VERSION\_ID}/Release.key" | sudo apt-key add -

sudo apt-get install podman

dpkg -l | grep conntrack
sudo apt-get install conntrack
conntrack --version

(base) x@macOS gyptazy_ubuntu22.04-arm64 % ssh -i
Host key verification failed.
Delete entries from /Users/x/.ssh/known_hosts

vagrant@ubuntu22:~$ minikube start --driver=podman
Error validating CNI config file /etc/cni/net.d/minikube.conflist: plugin bridge does not support config version "1.0.0"
kubernetes/minikube#17754
vagrant@ubuntu22:~$ apt list --all-versions podman
Listing... Done
podman/jammy-updates,jammy-security,now 3.4.4+ds1-1ubuntu1.22.04.2 amd64 [installed]
podman/jammy 3.4.4+ds1-1ubuntu1 amd64
sudo apt install podman=3.4.4+ds1-1ubuntu1
minikube delete --all
podman/jammy-updates,jammy-security 3.4.4+ds1-1ubuntu1.22.04.2 arm64 [upgradable from: 3.4.4+ds1-1ubuntu1]
podman/jammy,now 3.4.4+ds1-1ubuntu1 arm64 [installed,upgradable to: 3.4.4+ds1-1ubuntu1.22.04.2]

Error: Packages were downgraded and -y was used without --allow-downgrades
- name: Ensure Podman is installed at a specific version
allow_downgrade: yes # --allow-downgrades
force_apt_get: yes

Error: The \"podman\" driver should not be used with root privileges
vagrant/ansible provision using the podman driver together assumes root privileges.
workaround:
- name: Start Minikube
ansible.builtin.command: minikube start --driver=podman
become: false # Ensures it doesn't escalate privileges to root
become_user: vagrant # Run the command as the vagrant user
environment:
MINIKUBE_HOME: /home/vagrant

(base) x@macOS gyptazy_ubuntu22.04-arm64 % vagrant reload

vagrant@ubuntu22:~$ minikube status
Minikube type: Control Plane host: Stopped kubelet: Stopped apiserver: Stopped kubeconfig: Stopped
vagrant@ubuntu22:~$ minikube start --driver=podman
🏄 Done! kubectl is now configured to use "minikube" cluster and "default" namespace by default
Minikube type: Control Plane host: Running kubelet: Running apiserver: Running kubeconfig: Configured

(base) x@macOS gyptazy_ubuntu22.04-arm64 % vagrant provision

Error: Unstable ssh connection between vagrant and vmware
vagrant up/ssh fails to connect (on vmware) without ssh_info_public=true · Issue #10730
Instead I found that updating the /etc/ssh/sshd_config on the server and including this:
IPQoS lowdelay throughput

This project includes a role for setting up GitLab Community Edition (CE) on a Debian-based system. Below are the steps and configurations for installing GitLab CE.

• A Debian-based system (Debian 12 or compatible)
• Sufficient system resources (minimum 4 GB RAM recommended)
• Ansible installed on your local machine