VirtualBox called by vagrant - unable to control serial port raw file value

Question

OK, I'll explain what the issue is first to be brief, and then explain why it's a problem.

I use Vagrant to start a bionic64 virtual machine. When I do a file is created in the root directory named ubuntu-bionic-18.04-cloudimg-console.log

However in VirtualBox the settings for Serial Ports include the absolute path. I can vagrant halt and change this to

./ubuntu-bionic-18.04-cloudimg-console-ci4.log

but when I vagrant up, the settings have reverted and the file name is still the same. How do I fix this, or what's overriding this?

Why This is a Problem

packaging the box and trying to distribute it, that absolute path sticks around and doesn't exist in the target computer. Makes it impossible to share the box.

Oh, and the Vagrantfile..

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  # VM Box
  config.vm.box = "ubuntu/bionic64"
  # Automatic box update checking
  config.vm.box_check_update = true

  # CodeIgniter virtual host
  config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 80, host: 8080, host_ip: "127.0.0.1"
  # Code Coverage virtual host
  config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 81, host: 8081, host_ip: "127.0.0.1"
  # User Guide virtual host
  config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 82, host: 8082, host_ip: "127.0.0.1"
  # MySQL server
  #config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 3306, host: 3307, host_ip: "127.0.0.1"
  # PostgreSQL server
  #config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 5432, host: 5433, host_ip: "127.0.0.1"
  # Memcached server
  #config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 11211, host: 11212, host_ip: "127.0.0.1"
  # Redis server
  #config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 6379, host: 6380, host_ip: "127.0.0.1"

  # Add "192.168.10.10 ${VIRTUALHOST}" in your host file to access by domain
  config.vm.network "private_network", ip: "192.168.33.101"

  # Same path set in the $CODEIGNITER_PATH Provision
  # "virtualbox" type allow auto-sync host to guest and guest to host
  # but chmod does not work... tests will fail.
  # Default rsync__args except "--copy-links", to allow phpunit correctly works by symlink
  # Wait, this might be a problem using rsync - I saw a folder that wasn't there till I rebooted
  # config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/var/www", type: "rsync", rsync__args: ["--verbose", "--archive", "--delete", "-z"]


  config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/var/www", :mount_options => ["dmode=777", "fmode=757"]


  # Provider-specific configuration
  config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
    # Display the VirtualBox GUI when booting the machine
    vb.gui = false
    # Customize the amount of memory on the VM:
    vb.memory = "1024"
  end

  # Provision
  config.vm.provision "shell", inline: <<-SHELL
    MYSQL_ROOT_PASS="password"
    PGSQL_ROOT_PASS="password"
    VIRTUALHOST="localhost"
    CODEIGNITER_PATH="/var/www/codeigniter"
    PHP_VERSION=7.2
    PGSQL_VERSION=10
    #APT_PROXY="192.168.10.1:3142"

    grep -q "127.0.0.1 ${VIRTUALHOST}" /etc/hosts || echo "127.0.0.1 ${VIRTUALHOST}" >> /etc/hosts

    # Creates a swap file if necessary
    RAM=`awk '/MemTotal/ {print $2}' /proc/meminfo`
    if [ $RAM -lt 1000000 ] && [ ! -f /swap/swapfile ]; then
        echo "================================================================================"
        echo "Adding swap"
        echo "================================================================================"
        echo "This process may take a few minutes. Please wait..."
        mkdir /swap
        dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap/swapfile bs=1024 count=1000000
        chmod 600 /swap/swapfile
        mkswap /swap/swapfile
        swapon /swap/swapfile
        echo "/swap/swapfile swap swap defaults 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
        echo "Done."
    fi

    # Prepare to use APT Proxy
    if [ ! -z $APT_PROXY ]; then
        if [ ! -f /etc/apt/sources.list-origin ]; then
            cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list-origin
        fi
        sed -i "s/archive.ubuntu.com/${APT_PROXY}/" /etc/apt/sources.list
        sed -i "s/security.ubuntu.com/${APT_PROXY}/" /etc/apt/sources.list
    fi

    export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive

    echo "================================================================================"
    echo "Updating and Installing Required Packages"
    echo "================================================================================"

    apt-get update

    debconf-set-selections <<< "mysql-server mysql-server/root_password password ${MYSQL_ROOT_PASS}"
    debconf-set-selections <<< "mysql-server mysql-server/root_password_again password ${MYSQL_ROOT_PASS}"

    apt-get install -y \
    php$PHP_VERSION apache2 composer \
    php-intl php-mbstring php-xml php-zip php-xdebug \
    php-mysql mysql-server mysql-client \
    php-pgsql postgresql-$PGSQL_VERSION \
    php-sqlite3 sqlite3 \
    php-memcached memcached \
    php-redis redis-server \
    php-curl curl \
    php-gd php-imagick \
    python-pip

    pip install sphinx sphinxcontrib-phpdomain

    apt-get autoclean

    echo "================================================================================"
    echo "Preparing User Guide"
    echo "================================================================================"

    cd "${CODEIGNITER_PATH}/user_guide_src/cilexer"
    python setup.py install
    cd ..
    make html

    echo "================================================================================"
    echo "Configuring Databases"
    echo "================================================================================"

    sed -i "s/^bind-address/#bind-address/" /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf
    mysql -e "CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS codeigniter COLLATE 'utf8_general_ci';
    UPDATE mysql.user SET Host='%' WHERE user='root';
    GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'@'%' WITH GRANT OPTION;
    FLUSH PRIVILEGES;" -uroot -p$MYSQL_ROOT_PASS
    systemctl restart mysql

    sed -i "s/^#listen_addresses = 'localhost'/listen_addresses = '*'/" /etc/postgresql/$PGSQL_VERSION/main/postgresql.conf
    grep -q "host    all             root            all                     md5" /etc/postgresql/$PGSQL_VERSION/main/pg_hba.conf || echo "host    all             root            all                     md5" >> /etc/postgresql/$PGSQL_VERSION/main/pg_hba.conf
    sudo -u postgres psql -tc "SELECT 1 FROM pg_roles WHERE rolname='root'" | grep -q 1 || sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE ROLE root WITH SUPERUSER CREATEDB CREATEROLE INHERIT LOGIN"
    sudo -u postgres psql -c "ALTER ROLE root WITH PASSWORD '${PGSQL_ROOT_PASS}'"
    sudo -u postgres psql -tc "SELECT 1 FROM pg_database WHERE datname='codeigniter'" | grep -q 1 ||sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE DATABASE codeigniter"
    sudo -u postgres psql -c "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE codeigniter TO root"
    systemctl restart postgresql

    echo "================================================================================"
    echo "Configuring Memcached and Redis"
    echo "================================================================================"

    sed -i "s/^bind 127.0.0.1/#bind 127.0.0.1/" /etc/redis/redis.conf
    sed -i "s/^protected-mode yes/protected-mode no/" /etc/redis/redis.conf
    sed -i "s/^-l 127.0.0.1/#-l 127.0.0.1/" /etc/memcached.conf
    systemctl restart redis
    systemctl restart memcached

    echo "================================================================================"
    echo "Configuring Virtual Hosts"
    echo "================================================================================"

    mkdir -p "${CODEIGNITER_PATH}/build/coverage-html"
    mkdir -p "${CODEIGNITER_PATH}/public"
    mkdir -p "${CODEIGNITER_PATH}/user_guide_src/build/html"
    mkdir -p "${CODEIGNITER_PATH}/writable/apache"
    chown -R vagrant:vagrant $CODEIGNITER_PATH

    # Creates a symlink in the user home
    if [ ! -d /home/vagrant/codeigniter ]; then
        ln -s $CODEIGNITER_PATH /home/vagrant/codeigniter
    fi

    sed -i "s/APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data/APACHE_RUN_USER=vagrant/" /etc/apache2/envvars
    sed -i "s/APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data/APACHE_RUN_GROUP=vagrant/" /etc/apache2/envvars
    grep -q "Listen 81" /etc/apache2/ports.conf || sed -i "s/^Listen 80/Listen 80\\nListen 81\\nListen 82/" /etc/apache2/ports.conf
    sed -i "s/^display_errors = Off/display_errors = On/" /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini
    sed -i "s/^display_startup_errors = Off/display_startup_errors = On/" /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini

    echo "ServerName ${VIRTUALHOST}
<Directory ${CODEIGNITER_PATH}>
    DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
    Options All
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin vagrant@localhost
    DocumentRoot ${CODEIGNITER_PATH}/public
    ErrorLog  ${CODEIGNITER_PATH}/writable/apache/error.log
    CustomLog ${CODEIGNITER_PATH}/writable/apache/custom.log combined
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:81>
    DocumentRoot ${CODEIGNITER_PATH}/build/coverage-html
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:82>
    DocumentRoot ${CODEIGNITER_PATH}/user_guide_src/build/html
</VirtualHost>
" > /etc/apache2/sites-available/codeigniter.conf

    a2enmod rewrite
    a2dissite 000-default.conf
    a2ensite codeigniter.conf
    systemctl restart apache2

    echo "================================================================================"
    echo "Services Status"
    echo "================================================================================"
    service --status-all

  SHELL
end

Answer 1

I have found an answer and a sequence for this that solves the problem.

• The absolute path for the Serial Port RawFile #0 that I can't change, I can't change when the VM is running because VirtualBox won't allow that
• I can change it when it's NOT running in VirtualBox, but if VAGRANT starts the VM, it automatically overrides this value to the Vagrantfile root as an absolute path
• This makes sense for clarity but it also stays with the box when I do vagrant package on a running box (which I believe it has to be running).

The solution is as follows:

• with the VM not running, open VirtualBox, and change the file path and name to ./your-file-name
• then start the VM in VirtualBox instead of using vagrant up
• (optional) vagrant ssh into the box if you need to from the command line to set any needed running state.
• log out and run vagrant package. The file path and name will export as what you named it!

This story doesn't exactly end perfectly, as I wondered where my ./my-custom-file would be located. Turns out for my Vagrant install, in Vagrant's brains that's in the /Applications folder. I would have thought the path would be in the Vagrant program's root or a subfolder, or in the folder for the specific box. Probably there is a $PATH setting you can use, but this works for now (between Macs, and probably in Windows as well).