Bento is a tool that automates the creation of Vagrant base boxes for a wide range of operating systems (Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, Solaris) using HashiCorp Packer. It provides a Ruby CLI (`bento`) that wraps Packer builds, manages metadata, runs Test Kitchen validation, and uploads boxes to Vagrant Cloud. The repository contains parameterized Packer HCL templates, OS-specific variable files, provisioner scripts (shell and PowerShell), and Windows unattended answer files. The architecture is a CLI orchestrator that delegates to external tools (Packer, Vagrant, VirtualBox, VMware, etc.) with a focus on reproducibility and multi-provider support. Although it originated from the Chef ecosystem, it is a standalone infrastructure tool used to produce the official 'bento' Vagrant boxes.
Multipass is a production-grade virtual machine orchestration tool that provides a daemon (multipassd) with a gRPC API and multiple clients (CLI, Flutter GUI). The daemon manages the full VM lifecycle—launch, start, stop, suspend, snapshot, clone, delete—across several hypervisor backends: QEMU/KVM (Linux/macOS), Apple VZ (macOS), Hyper‑V/HCS (Windows), and VirtualBox (legacy). The codebase demonstrates a client–server architecture where the CLI binary dispatches commands to the daemon via gRPC using protobuf messages, and output is formatted in table/JSON/CSV/YAML. All VMs are provisioned with cloud‑init, and images are fetched from Ubuntu's SimpleStreams or custom HTTP sources with caching and hash verification. Network bridges, DNSMasq on Linux, and HCN/HCS on Windows provide connectivity; mounts are handled via SSHFS (or SMB on Windows). The design includes a plugin‑style backtracking for hypervisors, a persistent settings system backed by QSettings and JSON files, an extensible logging framework (journald, syslog, Windows Event Log), and a new‑release monitor that polls GitHub releases. The repository also contains a Rust component for petname generation and logging, a Python distro‑scraper that periodically refreshes cloud image metadata, and a comprehensive test suite with C++ unit tests (Google Test/Mock) and Python integration tests (pytest, pexpect). Overall, it is a mature, cross‑platform application with strong engineering practices but carries some technical debt from legacy backends and ongoing migrations.
FLARE-VM is a collection of PowerShell and Python scripts for automating the setup of a Windows-based reverse engineering virtual machine. The core installer (`install.ps1`) uses Chocolatey and Boxstarter to deploy a curated set of malware analysis tools, configure environment variables, registry settings, and taskbar layout. It provides both a GUI and CLI mode for package selection. The repository also includes a set of VirtualBox helper scripts (`virtualbox/`) for building, exporting, and cleaning VM snapshots, as well as monitoring network adapter status. These scripts are well-structured and can be reused independently for VirtualBox automation. The project is actively maintained by Mandiant (Google) and serves the malware analysis community.
Haaukins is a cybersecurity training and Capture The Flag (CTF) platform developed at Aalborg University. It orchestrates isolated lab environments for teams, combining Docker containers and VirtualBox VMs to deliver challenges. The system is built as a set of gRPC microservices: a central daemon manages event lifecycle, team assignments, and challenge verification; a store service provides persistence; and an exercise service defines challenge configurations. Participants access labs via a web frontend (Amigo) using browser-based RDP (Guacamole) or WireGuard VPN. The daemon also handles DNS/DHCP per lab subnet, real-time scoreboards via WebSocket, and keylogging for monitoring. The CLI client (hkn) allows administrators to manage events, teams, and exercises. The architecture is modular with clean interfaces for virtualization (Docker/VirtualBox) and storage (in-memory with hooks or gRPC backend), though some components show tight coupling and aging dependencies.
This repository provides documentation and automation scripts for setting up a Kubernetes cluster from scratch using VirtualBox. It includes shell scripts for creating and configuring VM images with cloud-init, configuration files for various Kubernetes components (etcd, control plane, worker nodes, HAProxy load balancers), and detailed documentation explaining the setup process. The repository serves as an educational guide for understanding Kubernetes infrastructure components and how they interact, rather than a deployable application itself. The main value lies in the well-structured automation scripts and comprehensive documentation that walk users through building a complete Kubernetes cluster with high availability features.