Creating a Local Vagrant Box for ARM64 RHEL9 with VMware Fusion

Background

Vagrant is a powerful tool used for building and managing virtualised development environments. It works with a variety of providers, including VMware, to create reproducible and consistent environments across different platforms. However, when working with ARM64 architecture (such as on Apple’s M1 chip), users may face challenges in running specific images, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL9).

This guide addresses the process of creating a custom Vagrant box based on ARM64 RHEL9, ensuring smooth integration with VMware Fusion on a Mac M1 system.

Photo by Marcello Gennari on Unsplash

Objective

The objective of this article is to guide users on how to create a custom Vagrant box using RHEL9 for ARM64 architecture, enabling seamless use of Vagrant and VMware Fusion on ARM64-based Mac systems. By the end of this guide, users will have a working Vagrant box based on RHEL9 ARM64 and VMware Fusion.

Step-by-Step Guide

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have the following:

• VMware Fusion installed on your Mac M1. If not, you can download and install it from the VMware website.
• Vagrant installed. You can download and…