shared folder problem

[till]

We've run into weird inconsistency issues with shared folders.

This is the configuration in Vagrantfile:

config.vm.share_folder("v-data", "/vagrant_data", "~/project")

When I edit a file on the share -- either by vagrant ssh into the VM and editing directly, or on the host system -- I can see the change done to a file when I cat foo, etc.. However, it gets tricky when this file is a static asset served by nginx. So no matter what I do, the state of the file is not refreshed and the content delivered is the same as when I started the VM (vagrant up). To refresh the file I have to either rename it permanently, or vagrant destroy && vagrant up.

My nginx configuration is pretty generic. The reason why I rule out nginx is, that I ran into someone with the same issue, and he's using a share_folder in Vagrant as well.

I found this issue in 0.6.9 and also 0.7.3.

Supposedly this works better when an NFS export is used. I'm testing this next.

[mitchellh]

This same thing has happened to me. OH GOD, this is so frustrating.

I'm going to ask a co-worker how we fixed this tomorrow (if we even did). This was so dumb.

[till]

We fixed it using NFS.

On Ubuntu: aptitude install nfs-common

This has to be done both on the host and in your box. Since you can't do it via provisioning, you may have to re-package the box.

[till]

@mitchellh Any idea yet?

[mitchellh]

@till:

Yes, this has been solved. This is due to a bug/issue with the sendfile syscall that servers typically use to serve static files. The easiest thing to do is add this configuration option to Apache:

EnableSendfile Off

Or if you use nginx:

sendfile off;

Yay!

[till]

Ah, is this solvable in vagrant too, or is this something virtualbox has to fix?

[mitchellh]

This is something VirtualBox has to fix, unfortunately. For now, please use the proper configuration option for your servers.

[till]

Ok, just wanted to be sure.

Sorry to keep asking questions, but any idea if they are tracking this?

[mitchellh]

till,

I wasn't able to find any tickets...

Mitchell

[till]

Adding a link for completeness: http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9069

[markjaquith]

I lost a ████ing hour and a half to this nonsense. Any thoughts on how this could be automatically detected? A scan of /etc/nginx.conf for sendfile on; (and the same for Apache), resulting in a warning on vagrant up?

[mitchellh]

I'd be a bit worried that Vagrant scanning nginx or apache configs would be doing too much. There are various ways that this could surface, and it really is up to VirtualBox to fix this issue. I realize it is frustrating (I too spent hours until I stumbled upon the answer), but I think that adding this to Vagrant would not be correct.

[markjaquith]

Sure, I understand. How about some documentation? Two good places:

http://vagrantup.com/v1/docs/config/vm/share_folder.html
http://vagrantup.com/v1/docs/troubleshooting.html

[mitchellh]

I think the shared folder documentation would be a good place to put a warning. The docs are open source in the docs branch if you'd like to make a pull request, otherwise I can add it when I can get to it.

[markjaquith]

PR'd: #1154

[pesterhazy]

The bug in VirtualBox still seems to be present, but in the new documentation for synced_folders the note about sendfile seems to have been dropped.

[spencerdeinum]

@mitchellh Would it be possible to put a blurb about this in the new docs? I noticed it is in the v1 documentation but missing from the new docs.

Just spent a few hours banging my head against the wall here as well.

[CleanCut]

There is another VirtualBox ticket here for this same issue. It all seems to be being ignored. :-(

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/12597

[AmazingDreams]

I had the same issue and tried NFS. NFS possibly corrupted my git index. I had an error similar to this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4254389/git-corrupt-loose-object

Not sure where it came from exactly as I just booted up to find that error, though this coincides with the first time I used NFS.

[ghost]

Please add the information about Virtualbox send file bug on: http://docs.vagrantup.com/v2/synced-folders/nfs.html.

[zhangjingjing2020]

@mitchellh
thanks！

[lordgiotto]

Still no solution for this bug? I need to use x-sendfile module in my project and EnableSendfile on is mandatory :|

[TajPelc]

If I add "sendfile off;" to my config the consistency issues are solved, but page loads where a lot of static files are served become extremely slow. They go from 1s to 12s. Has anyone else had the same problem?

[CleanCut]

sendfile is a feature to speed things up, and it's broken, so it's pretty normal that things slow down (but work correctly) when you turn it off, although it wasn't as extreme a slowdown for me as it was for you. I found it very interesting that performance increased a ton when I upgraded from boot2docker 1.7 to boot2docker 1.8. Boot2docker bundles their own version of VirtualBox, so I'm wondering if there was something changed there that affected things.

[kenorb]

Related VirtualBox bugs to this issue: #819, #9069, #12597, #14920.

Related posts (with some workarounds):

• Vagrant/VirtualBox/Apache2 Strange Cache Behaviour
• No visible cause for “Unexpected token ILLEGAL”
• Shared folder in VirtualBox for Apache
• JS and CSS files in vagrant not properly encoded when saved outside of the VM

[gnulnx]

I know this is closed, but non of these fixed my issue. Turns out I also had to update gunicorn to not use sendfile.

#7163

[criscola]

This is far from being a solved issue. I'm running a Golang webserver using Vagrant, modified a .css file but the changes are not visible until doing a vagrant destroy. If a try to do the same action on a vmware virtual machine, everything is working fine. I went crazy for hours because of this problem... I still have to find a working solution as the only solution I found are related to apache or nginx (which I don't use). The weirdest thing is that if I cat my file, I can see them modified, but not if I try to access through the webserver...

[mhitza]

According to latest status https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9069 this should be fixed in VirtualBox 6.0.6, can anyone that knows how to easily reproduce the issue confirm the fix?

[qazd]

According to latest status https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9069 this should be fixed in VirtualBox 6.0.6, can anyone that knows how to easily reproduce the issue confirm the fix?

It is not fixed for me, VirtualBox 6.0.14 running Ubuntu Xenial on 4.4.0 Kernel

Golang webserver using Vagrant

The only way is to not use sendfile for shared folders until it's fixed. I don't know Goland, but that https://github.com/wader/disable_sendfile_vbox_linux might be helpful.

[ghost]

I'm going to lock this issue because it has been closed for 30 days ⏳. This helps our maintainers find and focus on the active issues.

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