Vagrant alternative needed

1. The problem

So few months ago I just wanted to start my virtual machine by using my usual vagrant command, and I was greeted with this:

$ vagrant up --provider=libvirt
/usr/lib/ruby/3.2.0/rubygems/specification.rb:2303:in `raise_if_conflicts': Unable to activate vagrant_cloud-3.1.1, because rexml-3.3.2 conflicts with rexml (~> 3.2.5) (Gem::ConflictError)
        from /usr/lib/ruby/3.2.0/rubygems/specification.rb:1432:in `activate'
        from /usr/lib/ruby/3.2.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_gem.rb:63:in `block in gem'
        from /usr/lib/ruby/3.2.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_gem.rb:63:in `synchronize'
        from /usr/lib/ruby/3.2.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_gem.rb:63:in `gem'
        from /opt/vagrant/embedded/gems/gems/vagrant-2.4.1/bin/vagrant:95:in `block (2 levels) in <main>'
        from /opt/vagrant/embedded/gems/gems/vagrant-2.4.1/bin/vagrant:94:in `each'
        from /opt/vagrant/embedded/gems/gems/vagrant-2.4.1/bin/vagrant:94:in `block in <main>'
        from /opt/vagrant/embedded/gems/gems/vagrant-2.4.1/bin/vagrant:105:in `<main>'
$

https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/issues/13502
Here they suggest to downgrade ruby-rexml to 3.2.6. They don't talk about an actual fix until somebody explicitly asks for it, getting 12 upvotes.

https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/issues/13502#issuecomment-2371368299

It took over six weeks for this pull request to get merged.

https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant_cloud/pull/87#pullrequestreview-2414421181

You can't be too mad at Chris when he apologizes so nicely, but there were still six weeks in which I couldn't use my machine without hacks. And it is not the first time for me Vagrant suddenly doesn't work anymore.

I think the reason here is the script-based projects with various dependencies. I had trouble with multiple (mostly python) applications in the past.

That's why I'm looking for an alternative to Vagrant, which is statically linked. A Rust project would be perfect.

There also is a second problem with Vagrant: Recent version of Virtualbox 7.1.0 is not supported, but I have to admit that could happen to a linked project as well.

Still:

https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/issues/13501#issuecomment-2425115546

https://github.com/hashicorp/vagrant/issues/13501#issuecomment-2561305736

2. Alternatives to Vagrant

My requirements:

• I can start a virtual machine which is defined via a .yaml file in a single, simple command.
• The yaml links to a base image, which can ideally run on libvirt and VirtualBox.
• The yaml contains the hostname, usernames, ssh authenticated keys, enable sudo, maybe some network settings, dhcp, ntp etc. (Sounds similar to what cloud-init does)
• The yaml can contain additional scripts to be run on first boot

To summarize: I wasn't able to find a good alternative for exactly that. I will keep looking for one, though.

2.1. lima

• written in Go
• doesn't support libvirt, but works directly with qemu: https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/issues/2031
• username cannot be changed: https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/issues/1015
• has a very clean and easy to understand CLI
• the machine can be defined as .yaml

So lima comes close to what I need, but without proper libvirt support it is not a solution to me.

limactl start
limactl list
limactl start my-box.yaml
limactl shell my-box
limactl disk list
limactl stop my-box
limactl remove my-box

arch: x86_64
cpus: 2
memory: 4GiB
disk: 20GiB
images:
  - location: "https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/24.04/release-20240821/ubuntu-24.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.img"
    arch: "x86_64"
    digest: "sha256:0e25ca6ee9f08ec5d4f9910054b66ae7163c6152e81a3e67689d89bd6e4dfa69"

2.2. multipass

I don't like it.

• written in C++
• heavily focused on Ubuntu
• requires a daemon
• is from Canonical, is distributed via Snap Store :/
• has support for libvirt (experimental) and VirtualBox via local "drivers"