Vagrant Oracle Linux and the Vagrant user: use a password

Last year and earlier this year I have been struggling to create a new Vagrant box based on an installation of the Oracle Base box. I had some extra requirements, for instance having a GUI in my server to get to a proper desktop when it comes handy. I found in the end that it might be more convenient to create a base box by myself. I also tried using a ssh-key to have the vagrant user connect to the box to do the provisioning. But what I did, I get "Cannot allocate memory"-errors in any stage of the provisioning. For instance, when upgrading the guest additions:

Using a ssh-key is actually the recommended approach. Read my previous blog article on the matter for instructions on how to do it.

It struck me on why I couldn't have a Oracle Linux 7U7 box working as a base for new VMs. And why would I get these nasty memory allocation errors.
I upgraded from Vagrant 2.2.6  to 2.2.9, and VirtualBox from 6.1.4 to 6.1.6, but this wasn't quite related to these versions.

And just now I realized that the one thing I do differently with this box in stead of my OL7U5 box is the vagrant user ssh-key in stead of the password. So, I made sure that the vagrant user can logon using an ssh password. For instance by reviewing the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config and specifically the option PasswordAuthentication:

...
# To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
PasswordAuthentication yes
#PermitEmptyPasswords no
#PasswordAuthentication no
...

Make sure it's set to yes.


Then re packed the box

d:\Projects\vagrant>vagrant package --base OL7U7 --output  d:\Projects\vagrant\boxes\ol77GUIv1.1.box
==> OL7U7: Exporting VM...
==> OL7U7: Compressing package to: d:/Projects/vagrant/boxes/ol77GUIv1.1.box

And removed the old box:

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol77_gui>vagrant box list
ol75        (virtualbox, 0)
ol77        (virtualbox, 0)
ol77GUIv1.0 (virtualbox, 0)
ol77GUIv1.1 (virtualbox, 0)

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol77_gui>vagrant box remove ol77GUIv1.0
Removing box 'ol77GUIv1.0' (v0) with provider 'virtualbox'...

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol77_gui>vagrant box list
ol75        (virtualbox, 0)
ol77        (virtualbox, 0)
ol77GUIv1.1 (virtualbox, 0)

I found that it might be usefull to check if there are vagrant processes currently running. Since I got an exception that Vagrant said that the box was locked:

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol77_gui>vagrant global-status
id       name   provider state  directory
--------------------------------------------------------------------
There are no active Vagrant environments on this computer! Or,
you haven't destroyed and recreated Vagrant environments that were
started with an older version of Vagrant.

If your box is running it could say something like:

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol77_gui>vagrant  global-status
id       name   provider   state   directory
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
42cbd44  darwin virtualbox running d:/Projects/vagrant/ol77_gui

The above shows information about all known Vagrant environments
on this machine. This data is cached and may not be completely
up-to-date (use "vagrant global-status --prune" to prune invalid
entries). To interact with any of the machines, you can go to that
directory and run Vagrant, or you can use the ID directly with
Vagrant commands from any directory. For example:
"vagrant destroy 1a2b3c4d"

You could also do a prune of invalid entries:

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol77_gui>vagrant  global-status --prune
id       name   provider   state   directory
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
42cbd44  darwin virtualbox running d:/Projects/vagrant/ol77_gui
...

In the Vagrantfile I set the ssh username and password:

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://vagrantcloud.com/search.
  config.vm.box = BOX_NAME
  config.vm.box_url=BOX_URL
  config.vm.define "darwin"
  config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |vb|
    vb.name = VM_NAME
    vb.gui = true
    vb.memory = VM_MEMORY
    vb.cpus = VM_CPUS
    # Set clipboard and drag&drop bidirectional
    vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--clipboard-mode", "bidirectional"]
    vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--draganddrop", "bidirectional"]
...
  end
  #config.ssh.username="darwin"
  config.ssh.username="vagrant"
  config.ssh.password="vagrant"

It is common to have the vagrant user's password be "vagrant". Lastly I "upped" my VM. And this all seemed to solve my memory allocation problems.

Apparently, we can't use the ssh-key to provision the box.