BOXEN

At GitHub, we've been growing pretty quickly and that sort of growth presents a lot of challenges. We were feeling the pain of trying to teach everyone (developers and designers alike) how to get GitHub and all our other projects running on their laptops. The process was failure-prone, complex, and time-consuming. So, last summer, we created the first iteration of The Setup — GitHub's method of managing laptops without getting all authoritarian about it. We quickly realized that other organizations needed and wanted this environment, so we started back with the basics and re-architected The Setup into Boxen. The same tool, the same method, but written for modularity and general consumption.

We’ve since released Boxen (as of February 2013). This talk covers what Boxen is, some of the design choices involved, how to get running with Boxen, and more.

Transcript

1. BOXEN
2.  wfarr
3.  ops
4.  friction
5. what is a boxen?
6. Ruby Framework
7. @jbarnette + @wfarr
8. when two developers get really angry at how awful a bunch of things are, they write code
9. Boxen is a framework
10. Boxen is a standard library
11. Boxen is a philosophy on how your machine should be configured
12. Boxen tries to make installing system dependencies, configuring your machine, and generally everything easier and automated
13. why should i use boxen?
14. shipping day one
15. It's my first day at company X. So excited to work on $THING!
16. Ohai new laptop! I'm gonna spend the next like three days configuring you in the best way I can and hopefully I can write some code soon
17. Ohai new laptop! I'm gonna spend the next like three days configuring you in the best way I can and hopefully I can write some code soon lame
18. 1. open boxen-web 2. run the command 3. ship code
19. constant updates
20. "Only run this once and if anything breaks just reformat and do it again from scratch."
21. "Only run this once and if anything breaks just reformat and do it again from scratch." lame
22. Want to know how GitHub tested ruby 1.9.3 in development?
23. I pushed an update to Boxen.
24. And then I sent an email and said "Hey, this is changing, here's why, and it'll happen the next time you run Boxen. That's it. Easy."
25. The next time they ran Boxen, it installed our custom Ruby 1.9.3 build, configured their local github.com to use it, and everything from there just worked
26. If you make updating hard, people won't update.
27. If people don't update, you lack consistency between development and production.
28. If you lack consistency in development and production, you're going to have a bad time.
29. security
30. zomg java is hella unsafe in safari because <%= reason %>
31. so let's send an email and maybe people will read it and maybe they will disable java in safari and maybe life will go on
32. so let's send an email and maybe people will read it and maybe they will disable java in safari and maybe life will go on lame
34. Now everyone is secure by default.
35. repeatable process
36. Huh. $NEWEMPLOYEE, I'm not sure why $TOOL is acting this way for you. I think I set it up this way and I've never seen this before.
37. Huh. $NEWEMPLOYEE, I'm not sure why $TOOLtool is acting this way for you. I think I set it up this way and I've never seen this before. lame
38. manual processes are error prone
39. human beings are error prone
40. computers are error prone as we make them
41. community
42. we open-sourced Boxen on friday (pst) (5 days ago today)
43. 107 closed pull requests + 17 open pull requests
44. 198 closed issues + 43 open issues
45. the community is interested in seeing Boxen improve
46. GitHub is interested in seeing Boxen improve
47. It's not abandon-ware
48. We use the same modules
49. boxen/our-boxen is extracted from GitHub's boxen and kept closely in sync
50. stdlib
51. Puppet has this thing called the Puppet Forge
52. It's kinda like rubygems.org
53. but imagine now you've got 10 gems trying to be bundler that ship the `bundle` command all fighting with one another about who's the best
54. oh and random other libraries depend on specific implementations of that bundler- wannabe
55. oh and random other libraries depend on specific implementations of that bundler- wannabe lame
56. oh and random other libraries depend on specific implementations of that bundler- wannabe lame la m e lame lam la lame lame
57. Boxen shipped with about 90 modules all designed to not get in the way
58. you can roll your own, but we've already made it easy for you
59. p.s. chef has a lot of the same problems with 3rd party tooling too. it's not just a puppet thing.
60. how does boxen work?
61. puppet
62. Puppet is a configuration management tool
63. Puppet code says "I want my system to look like so"
64. Running Puppet makes sure the system looks like so
65. Every single time
66. Idempotent
67. puppet codez
68. Resources
69. package { 'git': } service { 'mysqld': } user { 'wfarr': } exec { 'rm -rf /': }
70. Types
71. cron, exec, file, host, mount, package, service, ssh_authorized_key, user, vlan, zfs, and way more
72. Providers
73. package => aptget, pkgdmg, yum, etc service => init, systemd, upstart, etc
74. package { 'git': ensure => '1.8.1', provider => 'aptget', }
75. exec { 'rm -rf /': onlyif => '/bin/false', provider => 'shell' }
76. Variables
77. $somevar = "whatever"
78. That's cool, chief. Let me try.
79. $hostname = `hostname`
80. $hostname = `hostname` nope
81. Facter
82. $::hostname #=> "scruffy" $::macosx_buildversion #=> "12C2034" $::osfamily #=> "Darwin" $::sp_l3_cache #=> "3 MB"
83. Facter.add("root_encrypted") do def root_encrypted? system "/usr/sbin/diskutil", "coreStorage", "info", "/", "> /dev/null 2>&1" end setcode do root_encrypted? ? 'yes' : 'no' end end
84. Classes
85. class git { # some git stuff }
86. class git::package { case $::operatingsystem { Debian: { package { 'git-core': } } default: { package { 'git': } } } }
87. class git { require apt include git::config include git::package }
88. Relationships
89. class mysql { package { 'mysql': } file { '/etc/my.cnf': mode => '0400', owner => 'mysql', } service { 'mysql': } }
90. class mysql { package { 'mysql': } file { '/etc/my.cnf': mode => '0400', owner => 'mysql', } service { 'mysql': } } wrong
91. class mysql { package { 'mysql': notify => Service['mysql'], } file { '/etc/my.cnf': mode => '0400', owner => 'mysql', notify => Service['mysql'], require => Package['mysql'], } service { 'mysql': } }
92. Metaparameters
93. notify/before subscribe/require
94. Puppet is Declarative
95. Puppet is not Procedural
96. Use the DAG
97. modules
98. A lot like Ruby
99. Puppet loads modules off the modulepath
100. Modules have a certain directory layout
101. . !"" files # $"" static_file !"" lib # !"" facter # # $"" a_custom_fact.rb # $"" puppet # !"" parser # # $"" functions # # $"" a_custom_puppet_function.rb # !"" provider # # !"" repository # # # $"" git.rb # $"" type # $"" repository.rb !"" manifests # !"" config.pp # !"" init.pp $"" templates $"" some_template.erb
102. puppetfile
103. Bundler for Puppet
104. # Puppetfile forge 'http://forge.puppetlabs.com/' mod 'boxen', \ :git => 'https://github.com/boxen/puppet-boxen.git' mod 'stdlib', '3.0.0'
105. how do i get a boxen?
106. Automate Everything
107. boxen/boxen-web
109. how do i use my boxen?
110. command line tool
111. $ boxen # Run it
112. $ boxen --projects # List projects Boxen knows about
113. $ boxen <project name> # Sets up <project name>
114. project manifests
115. I want to hack on my project boxen-web
116. # modules/projects/manifests/boxen- web.pp class projects::boxen-web { boxen::project { 'boxen-web': nginx => true, postgresql => true, ruby => '1.9.3', source => 'boxen/boxen-web' } }
117. $ boxen boxen-web
118. cloned repo nginx vhost ruby version postgres databases .env file
119. $ cd ~/src/boxen-web $ script/server $ open http://boxen-web.dev/
120. personal manifests
121. I want to install $X but only for me
122. # modules/people/manifests/wfarr.pp class people::wfarr { include minecraft }
123. # modules/people/manifests/wfarr.pp class people::wfarr { include zsh }
124. # modules/people/manifests/wfarr.pp class people::wfarr { case $::hostname { 'bender': { include projects::all } 'scruffy': { include projects::octostatus } default: {} } }
125. # modules/people/manifests/wfarr.pp class people::wfarr { git::config::global { 'alias.st': value => 'status'; 'alias.ci': value => 'commit'; 'alias.co': value => 'checkout'; 'alias.di': value => 'diff'; 'alias.dc': value => 'diff --cached'; 'alias.lp': value => 'log -p'; 'color.ui': value => 'true'; 'user.name': value => 'Will Farrington'; 'user.email': value => 'wfarr@github.com'; } }
126. # modules/people/manifests/wfarr.pp class people::wfarr { boxen::osx_defaults { 'fast key repeat': ensure => present, domain => 'NSGlobalDomain', key => 'KeyRepeat', value => 0, user => $::boxen_user; 'stop showing stupid popover': ensure => present, domain => 'NSGlobalDomain', key => 'ApplePressAndHoldEnabled', value => false, user => $::boxen_user; } }
127. issues
128. $ boxen Error: ZOMG at /opt/boxen/repo/ modules/people/manifests/wfarr.pp:8 on node scruffy.gateway.github.lan Sorry! Creating an issue on github/ totally-a-madeup-repo-name.
129. CODEZ
130. CODEZ who failed
131. CODEZ how long ago
132. CODEZ machine
133. CODEZ os version
134. CODEZ shell
135. CODEZ ref
136. CODEZ compare view
137. CODEZ git status
138. CODEZ full command
139. CODEZ full log
140. I'll fix the error and run `boxen`
141. CODEZ
142. GitHub Issues API
143. # config/boxen.rb ENV['BOXEN_REPO_NAME'] = \ 'github/github-boxen' ENV['BOXEN_ISSUES_ENABLED'] = 'yes'
144. auto-update
145. $ boxen # auto-updates cleanly and runs
146. $ boxen Boxen has a dirty tree, won't auto- update!
147. $ boxen Boxen has unpushed commits on master, won't auto-update!
148. $ boxen Boxen on a non-master branch 'new- project', won't auto-update!
149. i'm sold.
150. cool.
151. get started.
152. make a boxen for your company
153. make a boxen for your community
154. make a boxen for your thing that uses computers
156. what if i have problems?
157. file issues on github
158. irc.freenode.net
159.  wfarr come work with me on things like boxen
160. thanks
161. speakerdeck.com/wfarr/boxen