Creating an Ubuntu 18.04 base box

Ton Yeung

2 min readMay 5, 2018

Download Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop

Download the image from: http://releases.ubuntu.com/18.04/
Chose “64-bit PC (AMD64) desktop image”

Create the VM

In Virtual Box, click on the new button
Choose the default options for new vbox image
Name your VM without spaces, save it for later, CASE SENSITIVE
Click on the Ubuntu VM
Go to settings and chose the ubuntu iso that was downloaded
Start the VM

After creation, note the MAC address

Right click on the VM
Settings
Network
Advanced
080027F19737

Install Ubuntu 18.04 on Virtual Box

Defaults, except
Minimal Installation
DO NOT install 3rd party software
vagrant for all name/username/password
wait for a long time while ubuntu installs and updates itself
restart
remove the installation disk
restart again ( might be able to prevent this by removing the disk first)
remove disk by click on the cd looking icon on the bottom right of the vm window and chose host drive.

Ubuntu initial setup

Click through the welcome screen. The live updates sound interesting but require an ubuntu one account. So no.

Changed update settings

From security updates install immediately to display immediately
From other updates weekly to immediately

Made these changes so I know to update the base box and update my working environment immediately instead of waiting for my weekly refresh

Install the updates

Install Guest Additions

On Virtualbox devices, click insert guest additions
If install doesn’t start automatically, double click the icon on the desktop and run autorun.sh
Press enter then restart
Did not have to install extra packages
Not sure if guest additions were installed automatically or if the installation was successful
The command in Terminal to check indicates that it is present and running

$ lsmod | grep vboxguest
vboxguest             219348  6 vboxsf

Password-less sudo for vagrant user

Open Terminal
Runsudo visudo
add to the endvagrant ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
ctrl+o; ctrl+x

Install SSH

In Terminal

sudo apt-get install -y openssh-server

Wait for install to finish, then

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

uncomment AuthorizedKeysFile
ctrl+o; ctrl+x

mkdir -p /home/vagrant/.ssh
chmod 0700 /home/vagrant/.ssh
wget --no-check-certificate https://raw.github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/master/keys/vagrant.pub -O /home/vagrant/.ssh/authorized_keys
chmod 0600 /home/vagrant/.ssh/authorized_keys
chown -R vagrant /home/vagrant/.ssh

Reduce footprint

clean apt cache

sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get clean

zero out drive

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/EMPTY bs=1M
sudo rm -f /EMPTY

shut down the VM
in powershell

cd "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\"
.\VBoxManage.exe modifymedium -compact "D:\VirtualBox VMs\Ubuntu1804-Desktop\Ubuntu1804-Desktop.vdi"

vdi size goes from over 4gb to just under 4gb (not great, but it seems like 4gb is the lowest you can get with an ubuntu install)

Packaging the base box

Open PowerShell or CMD
Go to the directory the image is in and run

vagrant package --base Ubuntu1804-Desktop --output Ubuntu1804-Desktop-Base.box

The box file is now 1.5gb

Upload the box

Login to app.vagrantup.com, add a name, version, provider, then upload
Release version to make publicly available