To get started, you will need to install the two dependencies required for DrupalVM:

Let's set up the DrupalVM project by Jeff Geerling by following these steps:

vagrant_synced_folders: 
local_path: /path/to/drupalvm 
destination: /var/www 
type: nfs 
create: true 

DrupalVM is a development project that utilizes the Vagrant tool to create a VirtualBox virtual machine. Vagrant is configured through the project's Vagrantfile. Vagrant then uses Ansible--an open source IT automation platform--to install Apache, PHP, MySQL, and other services on the virtual machine.

The config.yml file has been set up to provide a simple way to customize variables for the virtual machine and provisioning process. It also uses Drush to create and install a Drupal 8 site, or whatever components are specified in drupal.make.yml. This file is a Drush make file, which contains a definition for Drupal core by default and can be modified to include other contributed projects.

The vagrant up command tells Vagrant to either launch an existing virtual machine or create one anew in a headless manner. When Vagrant creates a new virtual machine, it triggers the provisioning process. In this instance, Ansible will read the provisioning/playbook.yml file and follow each step to create the final virtual machine. The only files that need to be modified, however, are the config.yml and drupal.make.yml files.

The topic of automating and streamlining a local environment is quite popular right now with quite a few different options. If you are not comfortable with using Vagrant, there are a few other options that provide a server installation and Drupal.