Vagrant / Virtualbox crashes when installing npm modules

[aeneasr]

Hi,
I've been trying to get Vagrant up and running with precise32 and it works fine on Mac OS X. However, on Windows host it crashes during installing files from NPM.

My Vagrantfile is:

# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# vi: set ft=ruby :

# Vagrantfile API/syntax version. Don't touch unless you know what you're doing!
VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = "2"

Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|  
  config.vm.box = "http://files.vagrantup.com/precise32.box"
  config.vm.box = "precise32"
  config.vm.provision :shell, :path => "bootstrap.sh"
  config.vm.network :forwarded_port, host: 4567, guest: 80
  config.vm.network :forwarded_port, host: 3456, guest: 3306
  config.vm.synced_folder "../", "/var/www", :owner => "www-data", :group => "www-data", type: "nfs"
end

My bootstrap looks like:

# Install basic stuff
apt-get -y update
apt-get install -y python-software-properties python g++ make python-software-properties
apt-get install -y apache2 mysql-server-5.5 git sphinxsearch

# Add repositories with current versions
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:chris-lea/node.js
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:ondrej/php5
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:muffinresearch/sass-3.2
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:muffinresearch/compass
apt-get -y update

# Install php

apt-get install -y libapache2-mod-php5 php5 php5-intl php5-mysql php5-curl php-pear phpmyadmin php5-xdebug php5-cli

# Install nodejs related stuff

apt-get install -y nodejs
apt-get install -y npm
apt-get install -y ruby-sass 
apt-get install -y ruby-compass
usermod -a -G vagrant www-data

# Install npm dependencies

npm -g install bower --no-bin-links
npm -g install grunt --no-bin-links
npm -g install grunt-cli --no-bin-links
npm -g install pm2 --no-bin-links
npm -g install dnode --no-bin-links

Somewhere when installing npm stuff, the vbox crashes. Npm has a very high IO load as there are many files that are being written. I think that this is related to the issue (since I'm reading buffered_io). However, those files are being installed with -g which means that they're installed globally and should not be installed in the /vagrant directory but rather in something like /root/.npm. Additionally I don't think that the install fails as npm outputs npm http GET, so maybe it's the temp dir - but to be honest, I have no clue why this happens.

I've attached the crash log, so I hope this helps you a little bit.

Please also note, that the crash happens randomly when executing npm. Sometimes execution stops at installing "configstore", sometimes at "archy", sometimes at "which". So I don't think this is related to npm

[aeneasr]

Also, this might be better placed in the VirtualBox forums, but I wanted to start an issue here first just to make sure.

[tmatilai]

@arekkas please get the full debug output:

vagrant up --debug > vagrant.log 2>&1

Then gist the vagrant.log file and add link to it here. Also take a look at the npm-debug.log file on the VM.

[aeneasr]

https://gist.github.com/arekkas/8318589

Unfortunately I don't know how to open the npm-debug.log file, since the VM crashes :D

[aeneasr]

I've also found some problems which could be related to this one:

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20194128/vagrant-crashes-depending-on-physical-network
• https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/11649

However, the physical network is on both hosts (Windows and Mac) the same. Although the one is connected through WLAN (Mac) and the other through LAN (Windows)

[aeneasr]

Is there a way to not let vagrant destroy the box when it crashes so I can recover the virtualbox.log file?

[tmatilai]

Unfortunately I don't know how to open the npm-debug.log file, since the VM crashes :D

Haha, gotcha. =)

Unfortunately I have no idea what is happening based on the Vagrant log. But I'm not sure the VM actually crashes or if the connection is just lost. Vagrant will destroy the box in both cases. You could run vagrant up --no-provision and then vagrant provision to see that.

[aeneasr]

Nope, the VM crashes, since vagrant ssh returns "no vm running". I've tried running npm -g install bower from vagrant ssh but that crahses the VM as well. Unfortunately VBox.log doesn't give any hints about the crash (at least I couldn't find anything). This is really really weird. However, here's the npm-log:

https://gist.github.com/arekkas/8319277

[tmatilai]

vagrant ssh after vagrant up --no-provision; vagrant provision? Then it really seems like VirtualBox bug.

[aeneasr]

Yes I think it is an VirtualBox bug. I've already created a ticket here: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/12588

[tmatilai]

I'm closing this for now. Please reopen if you get information what Vagrant could do to avoid the issue.

[aeneasr]

Will do, thank you for your support!

[aeneasr]

By the way, the guest additions of the precise32 box are way outdated, maybe you could consider updating them to a recent version!

[tmatilai]

Agreed, but some people still use 4.2.x while others 4.3.y.

But you can use vagrant-vbguest plugin to automatically keep them in sync with the VirtualBox version on your host. I though I checked from your log that the versions matched but apparently didn't. Must have been other case. Too much debug log again today for me. ;)

[aeneasr]

Ah cool, thanks for the tip :)

[aeneasr]

I'm sorry for posting here again, but this has to do something with the combination of vagrant and virtualbox. I've created a custom debian box with most of the stuff I need pre-configured and pre-installed (modules like grunt, bower, grunt-cli, etc). While setting up everything worked fine but as soon as I make a box out of it and run "vagrant up", npm crashes the box.

Maybe someone could test this on their own windows system? Maybe it's something with Windows itself?

[aeneasr]

Okay this issue seems to be related to 'NAT Networking'. Is there a possibility to use another networking provider like 'Network bridge'? I couldn't find anything in the docs, but maybe I'm way to tired to find it :D

Still, when setting up a machine in the vbox gui, NAT isn't a problem, only when using vagrant the problem appears.

[drpebcak]

@arekkas Vagrant has a public_network feature that creates a bridged network.

[aeneasr]

Unfortunately, this only enables a secondary network adapter, it doesn't disable the NAT tho -> still crashing :(

[tmatilai]

Yeah, Vagrant currently always creates the first interface as a NAT one. No way around it as far as I know.

[drpebcak]

You could use vbox manage to remove that interface, but then I doubt your networking would continue to function. It's worth a try.

[aeneasr]

Thank you for investigation, right DNS calls are done extremely intensive in short period. Could you please attach pcap files for Athene2-vm and vagran_default? there is other thing that I've noticed in file.pcap, the order of responses, that could potentially be a reason. And one thing actually Athene2-vm isn't exactly clone of vagrant_default : the first one uses list of DNS servers exported by VirtualBox to guest, while valgrant_default uses dnsproxy. I believe that once you change it Athene2-vm will also crash.

Is there a possibility to not use dnsproxy?

[tmatilai]

The only DNS setting I know is:

config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |vb|
  vb.customize ['modifyvm', :id, '--natdnshostresolver1', 'on']
end

You can try if that makes a difference.

[aeneasr]

Thanks, I'll try that once I'm home! :)

[aeneasr]

That solves the problem!

[aeneasr]

Maybe you could include this in a cookbook or a known issues section, so other people find this quickly :)

[BenjaminPaap]

If I only found this one weeks ago. Thank you guys so much. Was struggling with this issue for days now.