VirtualBox ignores command line from vagrant

Vagrant
1

I’m trying to start a vagrant machine and get the message:

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, run `vagrant up` while 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.

However VirtualBox works and I can start and run virtual machines with no trouble.

If I try to start vagrant again, it will try another ssh port (redirect to 2200) because it seems to realize that another machine is running. However no actual machine is running as I can tell from the VirtualBox GUI.

If I look for processes, I see something like (from ps aux | grep irtual):

bitozoid    45295  0.0  0.0 101980  8492 ?        S    17:42   0:00 /opt/VirtualBox/VBoxXPCOMIPCD
bitozoid    45302  0.0  0.1 660724 20788 ?        Sl   17:42   0:00 /opt/VirtualBox/VBoxSVC --auto-shutdown
bitozoid    45407  6.8  2.1 2191396 356500 ?      Sl   17:42   2:45 /opt/VirtualBox/VBoxHeadless --comment 20190509asciio_default_1682525677193_73164 --startvm 92dc67f8-7b3e-4550-a9c4-abeac04302ca --vrde config
bitozoid    63535  0.0  0.0 101980  8592 ?        S    17:47   0:00 /opt/VirtualBox/VBoxXPCOMIPCD
bitozoid    63542  0.0  0.1 726260 20424 ?        Sl   17:47   0:00 /opt/VirtualBox/VBoxSVC --auto-shutdown
bitozoid    63631  9.9  4.5 2108528 745660 ?      Sl   17:47   3:28 /opt/VirtualBox/VBoxHeadless --comment 20190509asciio_default_1682527637229_53141 --startvm 6e077a88-f738-45ff-8f23-472b1ef58db2 --vrde config

so somehow vagrant has launched the two processes, but they have been unable to communicate with VirtualBox to launch the virtual machines.

Besides, if I try the same command line in a shell, then VirtualBox starts the virtual machine as expected.

$ /opt/VirtualBox/VBoxHeadless --comment 20190509asciio_default_1682529580247_81448 --startvm 2d5d0f05-7d2d-4dd4-aa61-f886ff451948 --vrde config
Oracle VM VirtualBox Headless Interface 7.0.8
Copyright (C) 2008-2023 Oracle and/or its affiliates

Starting virtual machine: VRDE server failed to start.
VRDE server is inactive.
10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%

And I can see the process as well:

bitozoid   171075 83.2  0.5 1203800 83624 pts/27  Sl+  18:32   0:14 /opt/VirtualBox/VBoxHeadless --comment 20190509asciio_default_1682529580247_81448 --startvm 2d5d0f05-7d2d-4dd4-aa61-f886ff451948 --vrde config
bitozoid   171079  0.2  0.0 111724  9452 ?        S    18:32   0:00 /opt/VirtualBox/VBoxXPCOMIPCD
bitozoid   171086  0.8  0.1 602396 21000 ?        Sl   18:32   0:00 /opt/VirtualBox/VBoxSVC --auto-shutdown

The only difference I see is the terminal and the ‘foreground process group’ flag in the process state.

I’m running Exherbo Linux, VirtualBox 7.0.8 and Vagrant 2.3.4.

2

After several tests, I finally get it working with VirtualBox 6.1.44 (downloaded and installed from VirtualBox web page) and vagrant 2.3.0. I get the same error if I upgrade to 2.3.1.

So far I have no explanation why this is happening.

3

For the records, I came with these problems again.

I had several instances of VBoxSVC, so I lsof them, and found that the one started with vagrant has permission denied to some files. I have had downloaded the packed version of the vagrant binary and it seems to uncompress itself in the /tmp directory to be run. This seems to create kind of a virtual environment for vagrant to run, but this environment then also applies to virtualbox clients (VBoxManage), making the VBoxSVC not to run properly.

As I installed vagrant from source, problem was solved.