inanzzz | Backing up vagrant box and restoring it

In this simple example, we are going to backup up our vagrant box and then restore it.

Backup

Assume that your vagrant box path is /Users/inanzzz/Webserver/php7/ so it would look line mac:php7 inanzzz$ in terminal.

Exit

mac:php7 inanzzz$ vagrant halt
==> php7: Attempting graceful shutdown of VM...

Restore

mac:php7 inanzzz$ vagrant package
==> php7: Clearing any previously set forwarded ports...
==> php7: Exporting VM...
==> php7: Compressing package to: /Users/inanzzz/Webserver/php7/package.box

As you can see above, our box has been backed up as package.box.

Destroy

mac:php7 inanzzz$ vagrant destroy
    php7: Are you sure you want to destroy the 'php7' VM? [y/N] y
==> php7: Destroying VM and associated drives...
==> php7: Pruning invalid NFS exports. Administrator privileges will be required...

Current content

mac:php7 inanzzz$ ls -l
-rw-r--r--@ 1 inanzzz  staff        578 23 Jun 16:36 Vagrantfile
-rw-r--r--  1 inanzzz  staff  628388089 23 Jun 16:44 package.box

Restore - version 1 (prefered)

In this case, you must have xenial64 box in your system. If you don't have it then run vagrant box add ubuntu/xenial64 command to add it first.

$ ls -l ~/.vagrant.d/boxes
drwxr-xr-x  4 inanzzz  staff  136 23 Jun 15:35 ubuntu-VAGRANTSLASH-xenial64

Vagrantfile

Assume that this is the original content.

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

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
    config.vm.box = "ubuntu/xenial64"

    config.vm.define :php7 do |php7_config|
        php7_config.vm.hostname = "php7"
        php7_config.vm.network "private_network", ip: "192.168.50.30"
    end

    config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |virtualbox_config|
        virtualbox_config.name = "Php7 - Ubuntu 16.04 - 50.30"
        virtualbox_config.memory = 2048
        virtualbox_config.cpus = 2
    end

    config.ssh.username = "ubuntu"

    config.vm.synced_folder "", "/var/www/html", nfs: true, mount_options: ["actimeo=2"]
end

Change the content so that it contains changes below.

...
config.vm.box = "my-ubuntu-xenial64-box"
config.vm.box_url = "file:///Users/inanzzz/Webserver/php7/package.box"
...

Restore

mac:php7 inanzzz$ vagrant up

Box is added to your system as seen below.

$ ls -l ~/.vagrant.d/boxes
drwxr-xr-x  3 inanzzz  staff  102 23 Jun 21:15 my-ubuntu-xenial64-box

Restore - version 2

In this case, you must not have xenial64 box in your system. If you have it then first run vagrant box remove ubuntu/xenial64 to remove it.

$ ls -l ~/.vagrant.d/boxes

Vagrantfile

Assume that this is the original content.

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

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
    config.vm.box = "ubuntu/xenial64"

    config.vm.define :php7 do |php7_config|
        php7_config.vm.hostname = "php7"
        php7_config.vm.network "private_network", ip: "192.168.50.30"
    end

    config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |virtualbox_config|
        virtualbox_config.name = "Php7 - Ubuntu 16.04 - 50.30"
        virtualbox_config.memory = 2048
        virtualbox_config.cpus = 2
    end

    config.ssh.username = "ubuntu"

    config.vm.synced_folder "", "/var/www/html", nfs: true, mount_options: ["actimeo=2"]
end

Change the content so that it contains changes below.

...
config.vm.box_url = "file:///Users/inanzzz/Webserver/php7/package.box"
...

Restore

mac:php7 inanzzz$ vagrant up

Box is added to your system as seen below.

$ ls -l ~/.vagrant.d/boxes
drwxr-xr-x  4 inanzzz  staff  136 23 Jun 15:35 ubuntu-VAGRANTSLASH-xenial64

Suggestion

I would suggest you to go with "version 1" just to prevent confusion later that it's a customised box, not the upstream box.