Add "Why I'm building custom Vagrant boxes" post

Gemfile.lock

@@ -1,38 +1,42 @@
 GEM
   remote: https://rubygems.org/
   specs:
-    addressable (2.8.7)
+    addressable (2.9.0)
-      public_suffix (>= 2.0.2, < 7.0)
+      public_suffix (>= 2.0.2, < 8.0)
     base64 (0.3.0)
-    bigdecimal (3.2.2)
+    bigdecimal (4.1.2)
     colorator (1.1.0)
-    concurrent-ruby (1.3.5)
+    concurrent-ruby (1.3.6)
     csv (3.3.5)
     em-websocket (0.5.3)
       eventmachine (>= 0.12.9)
       http_parser.rb (~> 0)
     eventmachine (1.2.7)
-    faraday (2.13.1)
+    faraday (2.14.2)
       faraday-net_http (>= 2.0, < 3.5)
       json
       logger
-    faraday-net_http (3.4.1)
+    faraday-net_http (3.4.3)
-      net-http (>= 0.5.0)
+      net-http (~> 0.5)
-    ffi (1.17.2)
+    ffi (1.17.4)
-    ffi (1.17.2-arm64-darwin)
+    ffi (1.17.4-arm64-darwin)
-    ffi (1.17.2-x86_64-darwin)
+    ffi (1.17.4-x86_64-darwin)
+    ffi (1.17.4-x86_64-linux-gnu)
     forwardable-extended (2.6.0)
-    google-protobuf (4.31.1)
+    google-protobuf (4.35.0)
       bigdecimal
-      rake (>= 13)
+      rake (~> 13.3)
-    google-protobuf (4.31.1-arm64-darwin)
+    google-protobuf (4.35.0-arm64-darwin)
       bigdecimal
-      rake (>= 13)
+      rake (~> 13.3)
-    google-protobuf (4.31.1-x86_64-darwin)
+    google-protobuf (4.35.0-x86_64-darwin)
       bigdecimal
-      rake (>= 13)
+      rake (~> 13.3)
-    http_parser.rb (0.8.0)
+    google-protobuf (4.35.0-x86_64-linux-gnu)
-    i18n (1.14.7)
+      bigdecimal
+      rake (~> 13.3)
+    http_parser.rb (0.8.1)
+    i18n (1.14.8)
       concurrent-ruby (~> 1.0)
     jekyll (4.4.1)
       addressable (~> 2.4)
@@ -66,56 +70,59 @@ GEM
       jekyll (>= 3.7, < 5.0)
     jekyll-watch (2.2.1)
       listen (~> 3.0)
-    json (2.12.2)
+    json (2.19.5)
-    kramdown (2.5.1)
+    kramdown (2.5.2)
-      rexml (>= 3.3.9)
+      rexml (>= 3.4.4)
     kramdown-parser-gfm (1.1.0)
       kramdown (~> 2.0)
     liquid (4.0.4)
-    listen (3.9.0)
+    listen (3.10.0)
+      logger
       rb-fsevent (~> 0.10, >= 0.10.3)
       rb-inotify (~> 0.9, >= 0.9.10)
     logger (1.7.0)
     mercenary (0.4.0)
-    minimal-mistakes-jekyll (4.27.1)
+    minimal-mistakes-jekyll (4.28.0)
       jekyll (>= 3.7, < 5.0)
       jekyll-feed (~> 0.1)
       jekyll-gist (~> 1.5)
       jekyll-include-cache (~> 0.1)
       jekyll-paginate (~> 1.1)
       jekyll-sitemap (~> 1.3)
-    net-http (0.6.0)
+    net-http (0.9.1)
-      uri
+      uri (>= 0.11.1)
     octokit (4.25.1)
       faraday (>= 1, < 3)
       sawyer (~> 0.9)
     pathutil (0.16.2)
       forwardable-extended (~> 2.6)
-    public_suffix (6.0.2)
+    public_suffix (7.0.5)
-    rake (13.3.0)
+    rake (13.4.2)
     rb-fsevent (0.11.2)
     rb-inotify (0.11.1)
       ffi (~> 1.0)
-    rexml (3.4.1)
+    rexml (3.4.4)
-    rouge (4.5.2)
+    rouge (4.7.0)
     safe_yaml (1.0.5)
-    sass-embedded (1.89.2)
+    sass-embedded (1.100.0)
       google-protobuf (~> 4.31)
       rake (>= 13)
-    sass-embedded (1.89.2-aarch64-mingw-ucrt)
+    sass-embedded (1.100.0-aarch64-mingw-ucrt)
       google-protobuf (~> 4.31)
-    sass-embedded (1.89.2-arm64-darwin)
+    sass-embedded (1.100.0-arm64-darwin)
       google-protobuf (~> 4.31)
-    sass-embedded (1.89.2-x86_64-darwin)
+    sass-embedded (1.100.0-x86_64-darwin)
       google-protobuf (~> 4.31)
-    sawyer (0.9.2)
+    sass-embedded (1.100.0-x86_64-linux-gnu)
+      google-protobuf (~> 4.31)
+    sawyer (0.9.3)
       addressable (>= 2.3.5)
       faraday (>= 0.17.3, < 3)
     terminal-table (3.0.2)
       unicode-display_width (>= 1.1.1, < 3)
     unicode-display_width (2.6.0)
-    uri (1.0.3)
+    uri (1.1.1)
-    webrick (1.9.1)
+    webrick (1.9.2)
 
 PLATFORMS
   aarch64-mingw-ucrt

Makefile

@@ -3,8 +3,7 @@
 install:
 	bundle config set --local path 'vendor/bundle'
 	bundle install
-	bundle exec jekyll serve
+	bundle exec jekyll serve --future
 
 clean:
 	rm -rf _site vendor .bundle .jekyll-cache
-

_posts/1970-01-01-hello-world.md

@@ -1,8 +0,0 @@
----
-layout: single
-title: "Hello, world!"
-date: 1970-01-01
-author_profile: true
----
-
-Hello, world!

_posts/2026-05-25-building-custom-vagrant-boxes.md

@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+---
+layout: single
+title: "Why I'm building custom Vagrant boxes"
+date: 2026-05-25
+author_profile: true
+---
+
+_TL;DR: I've built custom Vagrant boxes for Debian 13 and Rocky Linux 10 using
+Packer.
+[Grab them from the registry](https://portal.cloud.hashicorp.com/vagrant/discover/krislamo.org)
+or [take my configs to build them](https://git.krislamo.org/kris/pkrbuilds)
+yourself._
+
+When
+[HashiCorp relicensed its free software](https://www.theregister.com/software/2023/08/11/hashicorp-changes-its-source-licence-to-bsl/1551785)
+to the non-free BSL in 2023, the two projects that received significant
+community-backed forks under the existing MPL terms were Terraform (OpenTofu)
+and Vault (OpenBao), unsurprisingly given their weight in maintaining production
+environments across the industry. That left less consequential HashiCorp
+software, like Vagrant, without the momentum to keep it free, which I've used
+for many years to design, test, and understand systems infrastructure.
+
+Despite this, nearly three years later, you can still install the
+[free version of Vagrant on Debian](https://packages.debian.org/trixie/vagrant)
+because a maintainer continues to patch 2.3.7 to make it work (HashiCorp's
+non-free version is on 2.4.9 at the time of writing). Vagrant is just a
+convenience wrapper that automates the lifecycle of transient test virtual
+machines, so the urgency to find another solution has been low, especially as
+long as Debian continues to package it.
+
+Following the Debian 13 release, Debian Vagrant box updates stalled for a while
+after the
+[maintainer decided to stop publishing images](https://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org/msg2049694.html)
+due to Vagrant's non-free upstream status and breaking changes to HashiCorp's
+image hosting platform. That led me to start building
+[custom Debian 13 boxes](https://git.krislamo.org/kris/pkrbuilds/src/branch/main/debian-13)
+with Packer.[^packer] One clear benefit of a custom box is baking in the NFS
+client for host file sharing, so it's present from first boot, rather than
+installed during the first `vagrant up`, as you'd have to on the current
+official Debian image.
+
+Lately, I've also been looking to run Rocky Linux boxes and ran into yet another
+issue with official distro Vagrant boxes: the Rocky Linux registry links have
+been [broken for months](https://git.resf.org/infrastructure/meta/issues/138),
+making all official Rocky Linux boxes entirely unavailable. So now I'm building
+and publishing both Debian 13 and
+[Rocky Linux 10](https://git.krislamo.org/kris/pkrbuilds/src/branch/main/rocky-10)
+Vagrant boxes for the libvirt provider.
+
+Thankfully, Debian appears to have resumed updating its boxes more recently,
+which is great, and likely the path most people should take for Debian. Still, a
+deeper understanding of building custom boxes, greater control over updates, and
+the additional flexibility of baking the NFS client have led me to continue
+rolling my own. I publish them mostly for my own convenience, but since they're
+public, feel free to use them or build them yourself if they're useful.
+
+[^packer]:
+    There's some irony in concern for a free Vagrant and then building images
+    with Packer, as it's the same BSL relicense. But it's the obvious tool, in
+    the same ecosystem, and made for exactly this. And like Vagrant, it's low
+    stakes enough.