devbox

A disposable Ubuntu 22.04 development box on AWS EC2, provisioned with Terraform and orchestrated with Taskfile. Spin it up in minutes, destroy it when you're done.

Originally built for 42 school students to test Ansible roles with full sudo access — started as a molecule environment, now used as a full remote dev box instead of a local VM.

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What's inside

Each devbox comes pre-installed with:

• Shell: zsh + oh-my-zsh
• Containers: podman
• Dev tools: git, curl, vim (supravim), python3
• Ansible: ansible + molecule + molecule-plugins
• Custom: suprapack + supravim (personal vim config)
• A fresh SSH ed25519 key generated on the instance (for GitHub access)

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Prerequisites

Make sure the following tools are installed on your machine before using this project:

• Terraform >= 1.0
• AWS CLI configured with valid credentials (aws configure)
• Task >= 3.0

task itself is not checked at runtime — if you can run task check, you already have it.

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Quick start

# 1. Clone the repo
git clone <your-repo-url>
cd devbox

# 2. Generate your dedicated SSH key (once)
task keygen

# 3. Deploy
task up

# 4. Connect
task ssh

# 5. Destroy when done
task down

On first task up, you will be prompted for:

Variable	Default	Description
aws_region	eu-north-1	AWS region to deploy into
instance_type	t3.small	EC2 instance type (see below)
public_key_path	~/.ssh/devbox.pub	Path to your SSH public key
project_name	(required)	Unique name prefix for AWS resources
git_email	(required)	Your git email
git_name	(required)	Your git name

Your answers are saved in src/terraform.tfvars (gitignored) and reused on subsequent runs. Your public IP is always fetched automatically.

Instance type examples

Instance	vCPU	RAM	$/hour	Use case
t3.micro	2	1GB	~$0.010	Minimal, light testing
t3.small	2	2GB	~$0.021	Default, comfortable for most projects
t3.medium	2	4GB	~$0.042	Heavier workloads, multiple containers
t3.large	2	8GB	~$0.083	ELK, heavy Ansible roles

ARM users: if you pick a t4g.* (Graviton) instance, you must update the AMI filter in src/main.tf:

values = ["ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-jammy-22.04-arm64-server-*"]

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Tasks

Task	Description
task check	Verify that required tools are installed
task keygen	Generate ~/.ssh/devbox + ~/.ssh/devbox.pub
task tfvars	Interactively create/update src/terraform.tfvars
task up	Run check → tfvars → terraform init (if needed) → terraform apply
task down	Destroy all AWS resources with terraform destroy
task ssh	Connect to the running instance

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Project structure

devbox/
├── Taskfile.yml          # Task orchestration
├── README.md
└── src/
    ├── main.tf           # VPC, subnet, IGW, security group, EC2
    ├── variables.tf      # Input variables
    ├── outputs.tf        # SSH command output
    ├── versions.tf       # Terraform + AWS provider versions
    ├── user_data.sh.tpl  # Boot script (templatefile)
    └── terraform.tfvars  # Your local config (gitignored)

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AWS resources created

• VPC (10.0.0.0/16) + public subnet + internet gateway + route table
• Security group: SSH (port 22) restricted to your current public IP
• EC2 instance: Ubuntu 22.04, t3.small (default), eu-north-1 (default)
• EBS root volume: default AMI size (8GB gp2) — override with root_block_device if needed

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Customizing your boot script

The src/user_data.sh.tpl file is your boot script — it runs once when the instance starts. The provided template is the author's personal setup (zsh, supravim, podman, ansible, molecule).

You are expected to bring your own. The only contract is that the template receives two variables from Terraform:

• ${git_name} — your git username
• ${git_email} — your git email

Everything else is up to you. The provided user_data.sh.tpl is just an example.

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Cost

A t3.small in eu-north-1 costs ~$0.021/hour. A typical day of work (8h) costs ~$0.17. Always run task down at the end of your session.