juanje · September 28, 2012 00:38 · Sep 30, 2012 · Sep 28, 2012
diff --git a/gistfile1.md b/gistfile1.md
@@ -3,13 +3,10 @@ This is a little trick I use to spin up the packages instalation on **Debian/Ubu
 I add a simple function that checks if a directory named something similar to `~/.vagrant.d/cache/apt/opscode-ubuntu-12.04/partial` (it may have another path in Windows or MacOS) and create the directory if it doesn't already exist.
 
 ```ruby
-def local_cache(box_name)
-  cache_dir = File.join(File.expand_path(Vagrant::Environment::DEFAULT_HOME),
-                        'cache',
-                        'apt',
-                        box_name)
-  partial_dir = File.join(cache_dir, 'partial')
-  FileUtils.mkdir_p(partial_dir) unless File.exists? partial_dir
+def local_cache(basebox_name)
+  cache_dir = Vagrant::Environment.new.home_path.join('cache', 'apt', basebox_name)
+  partial_dir = cache_dir.join('partial')
+  partial_dir.mkdir unless partial_dir.exist?
   cache_dir
 end
 ```

diff --git a/gistfile1.md b/gistfile1.md
@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+This is a little trick I use to spin up the packages instalation on **Debian/Ubuntu boxes** in **Vagrant**.
+
+I add a simple function that checks if a directory named something similar to `~/.vagrant.d/cache/apt/opscode-ubuntu-12.04/partial` (it may have another path in Windows or MacOS) and create the directory if it doesn't already exist.
+
+```ruby
+def local_cache(box_name)
+  cache_dir = File.join(File.expand_path(Vagrant::Environment::DEFAULT_HOME),
+                        'cache',
+                        'apt',
+                        box_name)
+  partial_dir = File.join(cache_dir, 'partial')
+  FileUtils.mkdir_p(partial_dir) unless File.exists? partial_dir
+  cache_dir
+end
+```
+
+I put this funcion in my `Vagrantfile` so I can use it like this:
+
+```ruby
+Vagrant::Config.run do |config|
+  config.vm.box = "opscode-ubuntu-12.04"
+  config.vm.box_url = "https://opscode-vm.s3.amazonaws.com/vagrant/boxes/opscode-ubuntu-12.04.box"
+  cache_dir = local_cache(config.vm.box)
+
+  config.vm.share_folder "v-cache",
+                         "/var/cache/apt/archives/",
+                         cache_dir
+
+end
+```
+
+The result is that the *apt cache* inside the VM (`/var/cache/apt/archives/`) is always mounted on the same directory on the host (`~/.vagrant.d/cache/apt/opscode-ubuntu-12.04/` in this case) and *apt* just download the packages the first time or if the package has been updated.
+
+This save me a lot of time while I'm developing or debuging Chef cookbooks. Mostly when my recipes need to install many packages.