As an addition to the excellent beta book ‘Deploying Rails’, as I had problems using the suggested lucid64 image, I’ve tried to install a debian lenny 32 image with rvm and Ruby 1.9.3.

The steps needed are listed below

1. Download the lenny package:

   localhost$ vagrant box add debian-lenny-32 https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/glassesdirect-boxen/debian/debian_lenny_32.box

2. Make a new directory for the virtual box:

   localhost$ mkdir -p ~/deployingrails/lenny32

3. change into created directory and create the Vagrant file:

   localhost$ cd ~/deployingrails/lenny32
   vagrant init

4. change the Vagrant file to use the virtual box we have downloaded:

   Vagrant::Config.run do |config|
     config.vm.box = "lenny32"
   end

5. Start the VM:

   localhost$ vagrant up

6. If there is a warning about the Guest additions here install the latest guest additions by following the description here, but only use the update and upgrade steps as:

   localhost$ vagrant ssh
   vagrant$ sudo apt-get update
   vagrant$ sudo apt-get upgrade

7. After finishing the upgrade logout (exit) from the VM and issue the command to restart the VM:

   localhost$ vagrant reload

8. login to the VM again:

   localhost$ vagrant ssh

9. Install curl to be able to download the installation script for:

   vagrant$ sudo apt-get install curl

10. Download and install rvm by using the script described here http://beginrescueend.com/rvm/install/ :

    vagrant$ bash -s stable < <(curl -s https://raw.github.com/wayneeseguin/rvm/master/binscripts/rvm-installer)

11. Add the loading of the RVM function into .bashrc, by running the following in the command prompt:

    vagrant$ echo '[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && . "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" # Load RVM function' >> ~/.bashrc

12. Reload the bashrc file:

    vagrant$ source ~/.bashrc

13. Make sure that the rvm is loaded as function:

    vagrant$ type rvm | head -1
    rvm is a function

14. Run the rvm requirement to see the needed libraries and then run the suggested ones (except libreadline6 and libreadline6-dev that are not there in debian):

    vagrant$ sudo apt-get install build-essential openssl curl git-core zlib1g zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-0 libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 libxml2-dev libxslt-dev autoconf libc6-dev ncurses-dev automake libtool bison

15. Install Ruby 1.9.3 :

    vagrant$ rvm install ruby-1.9.3

16. Use the ruby 1.9.3 as default:

    vagrant$ rvm use 1.9.3 --default

17. Finally create a new VM package to use in future:

    localhost$ vagrant package --output lenny32-rvm-ruby193

18. And add it our box list:

    localhost$ vagrant box add lenny32-rvm-ruby193 lenny32-rvm-ruby193
    localhost$ vagrant box list