I'm just getting started with using VirtualBox. I'm trying to do all my work GUI free, i.e. only using iTerm2, and want to work with different VM's command terminal's via Vagrant. So my questions are:
How or what is the process/command to add different VM's to my VirtualBox that are each using the vagrant feature?
When starting vagrant using the command: vagrant up, how do i specify which VM i want to use?
I have looked at different explanations, e.g. the vagrant and virtualbox websites, but they seem a bit too specific to a certain case. My employer already setup Debian successfully and it is compatible with vagrant but I am not exactly sure how that was done or what the folder locations mean.
Related
Usually you have to run vagrant provision from outside your VM to create the VM to begin with. I then do a vagrant ssh to inspect the resultant VM.
If I wish to make small tweaks to the VM (using chef zero recipes in my case), I have to either switch to an other tab that is on my physical host, or exit the SSH session. it would be nice if you could do this run-and-inspect inside the previously created VM.
Why I'm asking: I have too many terminal tabs open for development and am looking for ways to prune, and avoid mental context switching (not to mention trying to figure out which tab is which).
No, you can not run a vagrant provision from inside the same vagrant machine.
Vagrant is running on your host and provisioning the VM according to the specified vagrantfile. Any changes that you want to have applied during the provisioning must somehow come from the vagrantfile.
What you can do is modify a running vagrant machine in any way you want from inside the vagrant machine, and then export the VM using vagrant package to a new vagrant box which then can be used as base for new vagrant VMs.
PS: Not sure how you're dev environment looks like, but I suggest you look into terminal multiplexers like GNU screen or tmux, that might be able to help you with your "tab issues".
Hello Vagrant experts out there!
I ran into a bit of a problem.
I'm trying to setup a vagrantfile with centos environment using virtualbox as a provider and it seems to work great.
So whats the problem?
One of our developers is working behind qemu on linux.
When trying to run the current vagrantfile with virtualbox it collides with libvirt, they refuse to work together.
Is there a way to write a single Vagrantfile for different work environments?
Meaning when I run the file on a machine with virtualbox installed it will run with a virtualbox provider and when running on a different machine with qemu it will run with qemu as a provider?
If not - is there a smarter way to do it?
I guess I'm not the only one out there the encountered the issue..
Thanks
I'm assuming you're using 3rd party provider (like vagrant-libvirt).
Vagrant documentation is mentioning that you can select default provider in couple of ways:
Set VAGRANT_DEFAULT_PROVIDER env variable.
Use vagrant up --provider
Set multiple config.vm.provider options. The first available will be used.
I have Vagrant installed on my iMac but I would also like to install and run it on my MacBook. Is it possible to run the same Vagrant box across two Macs?
I have done a Vagrant up command within a shared Dropbox folder - so i'm guessing that all I need to do is install vagrant on the second mac and then navigate to the Dropbox shared folder and do vagrant up.
Would this work?
Known solution:
ssh to the host machine
user#MacBook: ssh user#imac
then vagrant up; vagrant ssh.
user#imac: vagrant up; vagrant ssh
vagrant#vagrantvm:
This would be the most straight forward way I can think of.
Another option:
RDP to imac and run vagrant up;vagrant ssh as normal
Yet another option:
If your vagrant file is complete enough you should be able to vagrant up on any host to give you the same vagrant env. This relies on your use case but is how I use vagrant.
Vagrant stores the state of the machine and machine id inside the .vagrant folder. The running machine (vm) itself is handled by virtualbox/vmware or any provider your using. Lets say the virtualbox box is stored somewhere else on your system and referenced by Vagrant.
If you access the folder from two systems your basically remote controlling two different machine on two different systems. Not a good solution. Furthermore, you will run into problems if the states are different, e.g. its "up" on system one but "destroyed" on system two.
Additionally to the above solutions I propose the following:
Vagrant Share! Enable Vagrant http-/ssh-Share between your systems.
Vagrant machines should be repeatable and destroyable. Therefore, put your Vagrantfile under version control and checkout on the two systems.
Configure your provider to store the box itself on the dropbox.
I'm using Vagrant with the VMWare plugin. I've noticed that VMs upped using Vagrant are not displayed automatically in the VMWare Workstation GUI.
I can (manually) open them using File->Open... and selecting the .vagrant\machines\puppet\vmware_workstation\some-unique-id...vmx file. But that's a bit annoying. Using VirtualBox, vagrant VMs are automatically added and removed from the Virtualbox GUI.
Am I missing something or is that just not supported for VMWare boxes?
Reaons why I'm not just sticking with vagrant commands:
To quickly see which machines are running (I have multiple machine setups and yes, I know vagrant status does the same...)
To create and restore snapshots (I have a time consuming provisioning and sometimes it's nice to just restore to a snapshot while testing)
I didn't get #mmey's exact solution to work, but putting this in the Vagrantfile worked for me:
config.vm.provider "vmware_fusion" do |v|
v.gui = true
end
Documentation
I don't think there's much to do about #1, it looks like VMWare limitation.
However you can use this Vagrant plugin to add snapshot ability from the command line.
I found the (not so surprising) answer to my question: Just disable headless mode by setting config.vm.provider.gui=true in the Vagrantfile (as described at https://docs.vagrantup.com/v2/vmware/configuration.html).
I have two hosts, one Windows and one Linux, both with Vagrant and VMware Workstation installed and everything works perfectly fine in their own environment. However, when I create an guest VM in Linux and I do vagrant up in Windows, then Vagrant will delete(!) everything in the .vagrant directory and attempt to fetch the base image. The same thing happens if I do a vagrant init and vagrant up in Windows and then a vagrant up in Linux. How do I prevent this from happening? Is there anyway to share the same VMs between Windows and Linux using Vagrant?
I'm running Windows 7, Ubuntu 14.04, Vagrant 1.6.5, VMware Workstation 10.0.3. This problem occurs for all guest operating systems.
The content of the .vagrant directory can be OS specific, and the internal state of VMware for sure.
I don't think there is easy way to share the same VM instance between the two hosts. The Vagrant way is to provision the VM so you only share the base box and then each user/OS spins up their own instance.
Another option would be to use vagrant package and vagrant box add to transfer the configured box, but that doesn't work with the VMware provider.
Yet another approach would be to use a cloud provider like AWS or Digital Ocean and just ssh into the box. Or maybe even use the vagrant-managed-servers plugin. Your question didn't hint what you use the Vagrant VM for, so it's difficult to tell what would be the best solution.
The following has been tested using the VirtualBox Vagrant provider with Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04 in a dual boot setup with a shared NTFS drive where D:\ in Windows is accesible as /mnt/d/ in Linux.
First (but not indispensable if I'm not wrong), set the VAGRANT_HOME environment variable in both Windows and Linux to the same place, e.g.:
Windows, D:\.vagrant.d
Linux, /mnt/d/.vagrant.d
Then create a new machine from one of the OSes, from Linux in the following example:
$ cd /mnt/d/vagrant_machines/machine1
$ vagrant init
$ vagrant up
Then boot in Windows and first backup D:\vagrant_machines\machine1\.vagrant just in case case its contents get accidentally deleted.
Then register from VirtualBox the existing VM, e.g. D:\virtualbox_machines\machine1_default_1587262647987_91775\machine1_default_1587262647987_91775.vbox.
Then run the following:
>vagrant.exe status
The VirtualBox VM was created with a user that doesn't match the
current user running Vagrant. VirtualBox requires that the same user
be used to manage the VM that was created. Please re-run Vagrant with
that user. This is not a Vagrant issue.
The UID used to create the VM was: 1000
Your UID is: 0
And update D:\vagrant_machines\machine1\.vagrant\machines\default\virtualbox\creator_uid to your current UID (0 in this example).
Then start the machine:
>vagrant status
>vagrant up
Finally, note that you will require to update the creator_uid each time that you switch OSes, which you might want to automate.