📦 Vagrant RHEL 9 Lab — RHCSA 124 (Apple Silicon / M1)

📖 About

This project creates a fully automated RHEL 9 lab environment using Vagrant for macOS (Apple Silicon / M1), designed to replicate the RHCSA 124 course lab.
It’s ideal for testing, practice, and learning in a controlled virtual infrastructure for Students and Linux enthusiasts working towards RHCSA certification.

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📂 Project Structure

.
├── Vagrantfile
├── extras/
│   ├── initial-setup.sh
│   ├── bastion-setup.sh
│   ├── workstation-setup.sh
│   └── machines.yaml
└── synced/
└── docs/

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📦 Vagrant Box

All virtual machines use simonaesy/rhel9-arm v0.1.0, a custom Vagrant box specifically compiled for ARM64 (Apple Silicon / M1).

If you want to learn how to create your own custom VM box and publish it on the Vagrant Cloud registry, check out the documentation inside the docs/ folder.

IP addresses and hostnames for the machines are defined in extras/machines.yaml.

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🖥️ Virtual Machines

All virtual machines use simonaesy/rhel9-arm v0.1.0. This is an

VM	Hostname	Private IP	Public IP	RAM	CPU
Bastion	bastion.lab.example.com	172.25.250.254	172.25.250.222	1024	2
Workstation	workstation.lab.example.com	172.25.250.9	-	2048	2
ServerA	servera.lab.example.com	172.25.250.10	-	1024	2
ServerB	serverb.lab.example.com	172.25.250.11	-	1024	2

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🛠️ Provisioning Scripts

initial-setup.sh

• Enables root login and password authentication via SSH
• Creates a student user with wheel group membership
• Sets passwords:
  root → redhat
student → student
• Updates the system and installs basic utilities (vim, bash-completion)
• Enforces SELinux
• Enables and starts the firewall

bastion-setup.sh

• Installs and starts DNS services (bind and bind-utils)

workstation-setup.sh

• Creates a symbolic link /home/student/synced pointing to /synced
• Installs Gnome GUI
• Configures system to boot in graphical mode

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📄 Configuration (extras/machines.yaml)

Defines VM names, hostnames, and network settings.

Example:

bastion_hostname: 'bastion.lab.example.com'
bastion_ip: '172.25.250.254'
...

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📂 Synced Folder

The local synced/ directory is mounted to /synced inside the workstation VM for easy file sharing between macOS and the virtual environment.

🧪 Usage Note
This folder is intended for scripts that will check or automate practice test exercises.
To run a script, log in as student on the workstation and execute it like this:

/home/student/<practice_folder_set>/<script_name>.sh

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📘 Study Materials

All RHCSA practice exam prompts and official Red Hat guides will be placed in the /study-guide folder inside the workstation VM.

You’ll find:

• Practice exam exercises
• Preparation labs
• Red Hat official PDFs (where applicable)

This will be your central hub for RHCSA exam preparation.

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🚀 Getting Started

1. Install dependencies:

• Vagrant
• VMware Fusion
• Vagrant VMware plugin (Apple Silicon / ARM64 version)
• Install required plugins:

  vagrant plugin install vagrant-vmware-desktop
  vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest
  vagrant plugin install vagrant-hostmanager

2. Clone the project:

git clone https://github.com/SimonaCatanoiu/RHCSA-Playground
cd RHCSA-Playground

3. Launch the environment:

vagrant up

4. SSH into any VM:

vagrant ssh bastion

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🖥️ Working with the VMs (VMware Fusion Tips)

💡 Enabling Copy/Paste:

Inside VMware Fusion:

• Go to Settings → Keyboard & Mouse
• Map Command + C to Ctrl + Shift + C
• Map Command + V to Ctrl + Shift + V

💡 Making Vagrant-managed VMs visible in VMware Fusion:

1. In VMware Fusion, open Virtual Machine Library
2. Click + → Scan for Virtual Machines
3. Add the path:
   <your_path_to_repo>/.vagrant/machines

💡 Note:
For the workstation VM, you will want to open the GUI in Fusion. There are 2 methods:

Method #1

The Workstation VM has an v.gui = true in the Vagrantfile. In order to open the GUI, you need to do the following after spinning up the VMs:

1. vagrant suspend workstation
2. vagrant up workstation

This will automatically open the VMWare Fusion GUI for you.

Method #2

The VMs will are available in Fusion only when halted by Vagrant.

1. Run this command: vagrant halt, as Vagrant locks their control while running.
2. Manually open the VMs in VMWare Fusion.

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🔒 Notes

• SELinux is set to enforcing
• Firewall is active on all VMs
• student user has sudo privileges via the wheel group

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📌 Additional Info

• Tested on macOS M1 with VMware Fusion
• RHEL 9 ARM boxes from: simonaesy/rhel9-arm
• Requires internet connection for box downloads and package installations
• If working on Linux instead, just change the box in the Vagrantfile and use VMWare instead of VMWare Fusion as the provider.

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📬 Contribution

For questions, suggestions, or improvements — feel free to open an issue or pull request.

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🙌 Credits

Based on:

• ive663’s RHCSA Vagrant Playground
• Creating a local Vagrant box for ARM64 RHEL9 with VMware Fusion

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