Installing on macOS

This section is intended to guide digitalsats open source team members on installing the GMAT development virtual machine using Vagrant on macOS. It assumes nothing other than macOS has been installed.

Unfortunately, one of the prerequisites, XCode, required an Apple Developer License until macOS release 10.9 Mavericks. Unless the team member has an active Apple Developer License, macOS 10.9 is the minimum release that can be used.

Install Prerequisites

Our Vagrant box has five prerequisites, XCode, Homebrew, a git client, Virtual Box and Vagrant. To install these, log into your macOS machine as a user that has administrative capabilities.

XCode

Check to see if XCode is already installed by invoking Launchpad, then type xcode in Launchpad's search bar. If XCode is already installed, skip to the Install XCode Command Line Tools section.

Install XCode

XCode can take several hours to install, even on a fast network, so be prepared. If you do not have XCode installed:

1. Start the App Store.
2. Find XCode
3. Install it. (As previously noted, be prepared to do something else for a few hours.)

Install XCode Command Line Tools

Open the Terminal App and enter:

sudo xcode-select --install

If the XCode Command Line Tools are already installed, an error message will appear.

HomeBrew

Check if HomeBrew is installed by opening the Terminal App and entering:

brew --version

If HomeBrew is installed, it will display its version.

If you do not have HomeBrew installed:

Open the Terminal App and enter:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install>)"  

You will see messages in the Terminal explaining what you need to do to complete the installation process.

If you already have Homebrew installed, enter:

brew update  
brew upgrade  

to update HomeBrew.

git

Check If a Git Client Has Been Installed

git is often installed as part of the XCode command line tools package. To see if git has been installed enter in the terminal app, enter:

git --version

If git is installed, skip to the VirtualBox section.

A Git Client

See Git Client, above.

VirtualBox

Install VirtualBox

To install Virtual Box with HomeBrew, enter:

brew cask install virtualbox  
brew cask install virtualbox-extension-pack

in a terminal window.

Verify VirtualBox Is Installed and Can Perform Commands

Vagrant does not use the Virtual Box GUI, but uses the VboxManage command, instead.

Verify the installation by entering:

vboxmanage –-version

Verify Virtual Box can run a virtual machine by entering:

vboxmanage createvm --name temporary --ostype Ubuntu_64 --register  
vboxmanage startvm temporary --type headless

Look for the message:

VM "temporary" has been successfully started

Delete the temporary VM by issuing the following commands:

vboxmanage controlvm temporary poweroff  
vboxmanage unregistervm --delete temporary

Vagrant

Install Vagrant

Enter:

brew cask install vagrant

Verify Vagrant Install

Verify vagrant is installed by entering:

vagrant --version

The version should match the version downloaded from the Vagrant web site.

Congratulations, you have installed Vagrant on your macOS machine. Please skip to the section on obtaining the digitalsats/gmat2020a_box repository