Install Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code

We will use Microsoft Visual Studio Code on our host system to edit our code and interact with our Ubuntu system via SSH. You can run Visual Studio Code on any OS flavor you want.

Install

Download Visual Studio Code - Mac, Linux, Windows

You can download the install from above, but you may use a package manager. The following examples allow for single command installation.

macOS

brew install visual-studio-code

Windows

choco install vscode

Start Power Shell and check if the OpenSSH client is installed by running the following command. OpenSSH Client should be installed unless you have an older Windows version.

Get-WindowsCapability -Online | ? Name -like 'OpenSSH*'

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If it is not installed, run the following command in PowerShell to install it.

Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Client~~~~0.0.1.0

Linux

sudo snap install --classic code

Setup (Local)

Open up VS Code, and in the top right, click Open Folder.

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VS Code Open Folder
Find the folder you would like to work with. You can use your user folder or the project folder.

Setup (Over SSH)

Click the extension icon on the left side.

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Search for the Remote Development extension and click install

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You should now see a remote icon in the bottom left. Click the icon in the bottom left to connect to a remote host.

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Click Open SSH Configuration to change your user SSH configuration.

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Select your SSH config file. I usually use the one for my user.

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Confirm the IP address for the host you want to connect to. In the case of our VM, you can run the ip address command in the console to get the internal IP address.

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Add the following lines to the ssh config file with the internal IP address. Then save this file.
```
Host ubuntu
	HostName 172.19.2.227
	User vagrant
```
Click the bottom left green icon, but this time select connect to host.

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From the list, select the hostname. In our case, it is ubuntu. It will be whatever you named the host in the ssh config file.
Click “Continue” when asked about the SSH key fingerprint from the server. This will only happen the first time you connect to the VM.
Since we are not using an SSH key, we are prompted for an SSH password. The password will be vagrant for the provided VM.

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Now that we are connected use the folder icon in the top left and select Open Folder.

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Select your home folder and press OK.

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You’re now connected to your remote host over SSH. You can now open a terminal and interact with the remote files inside VS Code. Put down your Nano/Vim.

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Setup Plugins

Let’s add a few plugins that will be useful for this training.

Click the Extensions icon in the left-hand bar.

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Search the marketplace for Terraform, then click the install button next to the extension just named Terraform. It should be at the top.

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Finally, search for Ansible and install this plugin as well.

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There are other plugins that are useful, but for now, that’s all we will need. These plugins will help with syntax highlighting and formatting.

Terraform Digital Ocean