Vagrant: how to reload VM memory settings - vagrant

I need to increase my memory settings which are now:
config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
vb.memory = "1024"
end
The problem is that even increasing the vb.memory, when I issue a "free -m" from the virtual machine, I don't see any change in available memory.
Tried with:
vagrant reload
without luck. Is there a non-destructive way to change the memory settings of the VM ?
Thanks

Related

How to use aliases in Vagrant

I'm trying to create aliases that I can use in Vagrant any time I run the VM. I've found several sources on the web about it, but can't get it working. I tried making a .bash_profile in my synced folder, but that didn't work. I noticed if I run the command alias name="command" this will work, but only for the current session. Anyone know how to do this? I'm using macOS. Thanks for your help!
Here is my Vagrantfile:
# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# vi: set ft=ruby :
unless Vagrant.has_plugin?("vagrant-vbguest")
warn "\nWARNING: The vagrant-vbguest plugin should be installed or your shared folders might not mount properly!"
warn "You can do this by running the command 'vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest'.\n\n"
end
VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = "2"
Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|
config.vm.box = "pype_vm"
config.vm.box_url = "https://.../pype_vm.json"
config.vm.network "private_network", ip: ""
config.vm.boot_timeout = 600
config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |v|
# This forces VirtualBox to use the host's DNS resolver instead of
# VirtualBox's
v.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "", "on"]
# This enables the PAE/NX option, which resolved at least one user's
# issues with the VM hanging on boot
v.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--pae", "on"]
# The RHEL VM was created with 2GB of memory to facilitate provisioning,
# but this is causing issues with certain workstations. This reduces
# the amount of memory allocated to the VM but should not impact development
# performance. The number is in MB and can be increased if desired.
v.memory = 1024
end
# Share an additional folder to the guest VM.
config.vm.synced_folder File.dirname(__FILE__), "/pype"
end
The details depend on the specific of the guest being run, but some notes:
Assuming the default user account is active for vagrant ssh, ensure that any dotfiles you wish to override are copied to /home/vagrant.
If overriding .bashrc, ensure that the remote shell is started with the interactive flag (if this is true, echo $- will include i).
If overriding .bash_profile, ensure that the remote shell is started as a login shell (if this is true, echo $- will include l).

How do I change the RAM setting in VirtualBox?

I work on a MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM. For my projects, I use Ubuntu in VirtualBox (by way of Vagrant). But my VMs have insufficient RAM. VirtualBox takes up most of the RAM (2GB). I can not change the limits, the slider does not work (it is frozen?).
you can do the following in your Vagrantfile
Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
# ... other configuration
config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |v|
v.memory = 1024
end
end
This will allow only 1GB on the VM.
In your Virtual machine box conversationdriverlocal_default_1468940462492_81779 is running, need to be shutdown and than change the RAM from setting by sliding the slider and start the again.

Made changes to Vagrantfile - now my vagrant will not start

I made some changes to my Vagrantfile. All I did was to add more processors and ram to the config.
Before (and commented out):
....
#config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
# # Display the VirtualBox GUI when booting the machine
# vb.gui = true
#
# # Customize the amount of memory on the VM:
# vb.memory = "1024"
# vb.cpus = "2"
#end
....
After:
....
config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
# # Display the VirtualBox GUI when booting the machine
vb.gui = true
#
# # Customize the amount of memory on the VM:
vb.memory = "1024"
vb.cpus = "2"
end
....
I rebooted the machine and got this error:
The guest machine entered an invalid state while waiting for it
to boot. Valid states are 'starting, running'. The machine is in the
'poweroff' state. Please verify everything is configured
properly and try again.
If the provider you're using has a GUI that comes with it,
it is often helpful to open that and watch the machine, since the
GUI often has more helpful error messages than Vagrant can retrieve.
For example, if you're using VirtualBox, runvagrant upwhile the
VirtualBox GUI is open.
The primary issue for this error is that the provider you're using
is not properly configured. This is very rarely a Vagrant issue.
So I changed my Vagrantfile back to how it was originally (as above).
I still can't boot the machine with vagrant up. What have I done wrong?
When I do have the UI enabled. It just opens and closes without me being able to see it.

Setting vagrant home directory during provisioning

I have a VM that I'm pulling down with vagrant and using a VERY basic vagrant file
Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|
# The most common configuration options are documented and commented below.
# For a complete reference, please see the online documentation at
# https://docs.vagrantup.com.
# Every Vagrant development environment requires a box. You can search for
# boxes at https://atlas.hashicorp.com/search.
config.vm.box = "vagrant-rhel-devel"
config.vm.network :private_network, ip: "192.168.33.101"
config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/vagrant"
config.ssh.username = "vagrant"
config.ssh.password = "vagrant"
config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
# Display the VirtualBox GUI when booting the machine
# vb.gui = true
# Enable 3d Rendering
vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--accelerate3d", "on"]
# Sets 32megs video ram, higher number here = more POWERS
vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--vram", "32"]
# # Customize the amount of memory on the VM:
# vb.memory = "1024"
vb.name = "RedHat 3D"
end
end
My issue is that the vagrant user gets a home directory of /localhome/vagrant and I'd like him to have /home/vagrant as the home directory.
Is this something I'm able to change with provisioning or is it something that is set in the VM itself? I'm rather unskilled at the provisioning step at the moment so an example would be great.
The HOME directory has been set when the user has been created so this was done before the VM was packaged as vagrant box.
From there, you should be able to change that with
usermod -m -d /path/to/new/home/dir userNameHere
so in your case it would be
usermod -m -d /home/vagrant vagrant
check if you have existing files under the /localhome directory that would need to be copied into the new one (bash preferences file)
if you do not plan to destroy/create a bunch of new VM from this box, its not needed to add as provisioning; if you do plan to use this box and create lot of new VM, then it could make sense, you would just need to add an inline shell provision

Running Vagrant Inside VMWare VM

I realize this is essentially OSCeption (Operating System Inception), but I think it might make the most sense for me (please tell me if there's a better option, this seems really awful).
Here's the situation:
I have a windows 8 machine. I like it - it works great for everything but development. For development, I've been using a VMWare virtual machine running Ubuntu. I've dabbled with using Cygwin, but it just didn't feel right.
I'm now joining a project where they've been using Vagrant to manage development environments so I need to be able to use Vagrant. But, from what I've seen, Vagrant is mainly used to run code within a consistent environment, but not necessarily to write it. And if I wanted to write code by SSH'ing into my vagrant boxes, then I would have to re-configure my preferences like my .vimrc file and what not for every machine.
Does it then make sense to install Vagrant within my Ubuntu VirtualMachine? I feel like at some point VMs within VMs will get out of hand and cause problems. Is there any better way to do this?
Edit: So I tried it out - as I expected I hit some errors. When I try and boot the machine, I get the following error message:
Failed to open a session for the virtual machine vagranttest_1371583212.
VT-x is not available. (VERR_VMX_NO_VMX).
Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: Console
Interface: IConsole {db7ab4ca-2a3f-4183-9243-c1208da92392}
Looks like my vmware virtual machine can't run another virtual machine. Any ideas on the best way to go about doing this?
I've run into the same issue today. The solution is quite simple.
Power off vmware vitrual machine.
Go to "edit virtual machine settings"
Go to processors. There are three checkboxes there.
Check second checkbox (enable VT-x/AMD-V)
Power on machine.
After this virtualbox should work inside vmware.
To answer the original question as well as #blong's Vagrant forum post, this is what I've done to make this work.
I was trying to do something similar myself (actually Vagrant/VMware hosting Vagrant/Vbox) and I have performed all the optimizations I can think of, giving my "host" VM a large amount of RAM (24GB) and 6 cores, disabling swapping VMs to disk (this KILLS things on Windows when it happens) by setting "Fit all VM memory into reserved host memory", and allowing per VM page files (otherwise they live in the system page file which limits how many VMs you can run at once).
What I am doing has been working perfectly, the networking issues I've had were due to the corporate proxy I'm behind. Once I configured that my VM got internet access and all was right with the world.
I did have to manually set --natbindip1 and --natnet1 via the Vagrantfile in addition to the natdnsproxy1 and naddnshostresolver1 that were already set in my example (Virtualbox) Vagrantfile. These settings can be found in the Virtualbox documentation for the correct usage.
To sum it up, use the VT-x passthrough/"virtualize" option in your VM CPU settings, give the VM adequate memory, don't allow that memory to be swapped on the "root" host machine, and try to make sure your network ranges don't overlap or you'll have routing trouble.
Here is the Vagrantfile I was working from, it is based almost entirely on andreptb's gist for the modern.ie vagrant setup. https://gist.github.com/andreptb/57e388df5e881937e62a
# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# vi: set ft=ruby :
# box name into env var, same script can be used with different boxes. Defaults to win7-ie11.
box_name = box_name = ENV['box_name'] != nil ? ENV['box_name'].strip : 'win7-ie11'
# box repo into env var, so private repos/cache can be used. Defaults to http://aka.ms
box_repo = ENV['box_repo'] != nil ? ENV['box_repo'].strip : 'http://aka.ms'
Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
# If the box is win7-ie11, the convention for the box name is modern.ie/win7-ie11
config.vm.box = "modern.ie/" + box_name
# If the box is win7-ie11, the convention for the box url is http://aka.ms/vagrant-win7-ie11
config.vm.box_url = box_repo + "/vagrant-" + box_name
# big timeout since windows boot is very slow
config.vm.boot_timeout = 500
# rdp forward
config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 3389, host: 3389, id: "rdp", auto_correct: true
# winrm config, uses modern.ie default user/password. If other credentials are used must be changed here
config.vm.communicator = "winrm"
config.winrm.username = "IEUser"
config.winrm.password = "Passw0rd!"
config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
# first setup requires gui to be enabled so scripts can be executed in virtualbox guest screen
#vb.gui = true
vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--memory", "1024"]
vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--vram", "128"]
vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--cpus", "2"]
vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--natdnsproxy1", "on"]
vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--natdnshostresolver1", "on"]
vb.customize ["guestproperty", "set", :id, "/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/VBoxService/--timesync-set-threshold", 10000]
end
end
My additional changes:
# Need the WinRM gem for managing from Linux
$ sudo gem install winrm
config.vm.communicator = "winrm"
+ config.winrm.host = "localhost"
config.winrm.username = "IEUser"
config.winrm.password = "Passw0rd!"
# This one may not be necessary, I added it for completeness
+ config.vm.guest = :windows
# In order to USE the two CPUs you need the ioapic
# Virtualbox gives an error in the GUI and only shows 1 CPU in the VM otherwise
vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--cpus", "2"]
+ vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--ioapic", "on"]
# We had to modify the network range because we are running Virtualbox inside VMware
+ vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--natnet1", "192.168.199.0/24"]
Remove the + signs and add those lines into the Vagrantfile above and you should have an equivalent working system to what I've been using.
If you are running virualbox in a VM in vsphere, you have to ssh to the ESXi to update a configuration.
Steps:
ssh to ESXi server.
find the vmx file which belong to your VM find / -name *.vmx
poweroff your VM.(very important, or your change will be overwrite)
edit that vmx, append a new configuration at the bottom of the file: vhv.enable = "TRUE"
power on your VM
enjoy the Vagrant. :)
I have tried this in two VMware products. Right-click on the VM:
In vCloud Director 5.5 VM properties on the Hardware tab there's an "Expose hardware-assisted CPU virtualization to guest OS" checkbox, but it's grayed out for me. YMMV.
In vSphere Version 5.5.0 Edit Settings > Virtual Hardware > CPU the checkbox is called "Expose hardware assisted virtualization to the guest OS," and that worked for me.

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