Vendor-agnostic free software to provision cloud instances and run scripts on them

Question

I am looking for generic software which performs the following:

1. Spins up a server on a cloud (vendor agnostic) or local VM (ideally)
2. Transfers a bash script to the new server
3. Runs the bash script, waiting as long as is necessary before
4. Performs post-script actions such as downloading a file

It could look like this:

./runOnCloud.sh
    --credentials=filecontainingcloudcredentials.json
    --cloud=amazon
    --type=x3.3large
    --preemptible=true
    --download=/tmp/filetodownloadfromremotemachine.tar.gz
    scriptToRunOnRemoteMachine.sh

runOnCloud.sh doesn't have to be a Bash script of course, it could be Java or a binary or anything, as long as it automates and takes the trouble out of provisioning the machine, I don't really mind.

Answer 1

Vagrant

Vagrant seems like the perfect choice for your needs.

Multi-cloud

Vagrant supports numerous cloud providers and local virtualization technologies. Built-in support exists for "VirtualBox, Hyper-V, and Docker". There is a plugin architecture which has allowed a diverse set of folks to build support for cloud providers. Plugins and tutorials for AWS with Vagrant, or Google Cloud are easy to find.

Shell scripts

Vagrant has a Shell Provisioner that seems to cover what you're looking for.

Combined with a little bit more Ruby, this makes it very easy to embed your shell scripts directly within your Vagrantfile. Another example below:

$script = <<-SCRIPT
echo I am provisioning...
date > /etc/vagrant_provisioned_at
SCRIPT

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.provision "shell", inline: $script
end

Downloading a file

Vagrant supports ssh/scp so it is easy to download or upload files anytime.