This provides the virtualization engine. Oracle VM VirtualBox is the most common free choice, though VMware Workstation and Hyper-V are also supported.
Downloading a box happens automatically when you first initialize and start a project. Follow these steps in your terminal: Download - The CentOS Project
Before downloading a CentOS box, you must have two core components installed on your host machine:
While CentOS 7 reached its end-of-life in June 2024, it remains a common target for legacy application testing. For modern development, (9 and 10) is the recommended path. Official Box Name Typical Use Case CentOS Stream 9 centos/stream9 Modern RHEL-based development. CentOS Stream 8 centos/stream8 Standard midstream RHEL ecosystem testing. CentOS 7 centos/7 Legacy server maintenance (EOS June 2024). CentOS 6 centos/6 Support for older legacy environments. How to Download and Start a CentOS Box