Vagrant: Error: A box must be specified. -- vagrant reload / vagrant provision SSH issue

[generalconsensus]

Background:
I've created a multi-machine setup with Vagrant which takes advantage of Ansible as the provisioner. It creates a nginx load balancer, varnish cache and then my application on three separate VM's. vagrant reload and vagrant provision are both showing the error '* A box must be specified.' despite the box being specified correctly.

The way I know this is that if you put in an invalid name you get the error 'The machine with the name 'applicationz' was not found configured for this Vagrant environment.'

vagrant destroy application, vagrant up application and vagrant ssh application all work -- but this obviously slows down iteration considerably when you just want to re-provision a VM with ansible.

Also be advised that with my current setup I BELIEVE that I've discovered the root cause -- which I believe to be ssh related.

When debugging ansible by running the manual command ' ansible-playbook application/playbook.yml -i .vagrant/provisioners/ansible/inventory/vagrant_ansible_inventory --private-key=~/.ssh/id_rsa -vvvv' I see that the pubkey authentication fails at:

debug2: key: /Users/_/Sites/_/Projects/final/.vagrant/machines/application/virtualbox/private_key (0x0), explicit

which appears to have something to do with permissions. However manually altering permissions also doesn't appear to work. Be advised I'm using a CENTOS 6.7 box with all updated core packages (including openssh). Also be advised that I am able to manually ssh into the box with the correct ip/port and I am also able to use vagrant ssh application.

I am running Vagrant 1.7.4 and Ansible 1.7.2.

My configuration looks like this:

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

Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|


config.vm.box_url = "http://developer.nrel.gov/downloads/vagrant-boxes/CentOS-6.4-i386-v20131103.box"

  #LoadBalancer

  config.vm.define "lb" do |lb_config|
    config.vm.box = "centos6"
    lb_config.vm.hostname = "lala.nginx.lb"
    # lb_config.hostmanager.enabled = true
    lb_config.vm.network :private_network, ip: "10.0.1.11"
    #set some machine-specific options  
    lb_config.vm.provision "ansible" do |ansible|
        ansible.playbook = "nginx-lb/playbook.yml"
        ansible.sudo = true
        ansible.extra_vars = { ansible_ssh_user: 'vagrant', 
                 ansible_connection: 'ssh',
                 ansible_ssh_args: '-o ForwardAgent=yes'}        
    end
  end  

 #Varnish
  config.vm.define "varnish" do |varnish_config|
    config.vm.box = "centos6"
    varnish_config.vm.hostname = "lala.varnish"
    # varnish_config.hostmanager.enabled = true
    varnish_config.vm.network :private_network, ip: "10.0.1.22"
    #set some machine-specific options  
    varnish_config.vm.provision "ansible" do |ansible|
        ansible.playbook = "varnish/playbook.yml"
        ansible.sudo = true
        ansible.extra_vars = { ansible_ssh_user: 'vagrant', 
                 ansible_connection: 'ssh',
                 ansible_ssh_args: '-o ForwardAgent=yes'}        
    end
  end

  #Applicaiton
  config.vm.define "application" do |application_config|
    config.vm.box = "centos6"
    application_config.vm.hostname = "lala.seed"
    # application_config.hostmanager.enabled = true
    application_config.vm.network :private_network, ip: "10.0.1.33"
    #set some machine-specific options  
    application_config.vm.provision "ansible" do |ansible|
        ansible.playbook = "application/playbook.yml"
        ansible.sudo = true
        ansible.extra_vars = { ansible_ssh_user: 'vagrant', 
                 ansible_connection: 'ssh',
                 ansible_ssh_args: '-o ForwardAgent=yes'}        
    end
  end  
end

[samhh]

I am getting the same error. Full details can be viewed here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32442175/vagrant-config-error-a-box-must-be-specified

[sethvargo]

Hi @generalconsensus

Thank you for opening an issue, and I am sorry you are having issues with Vagrant. I see that you've shared your Vagrantfile - is that the complete Vagrantfile? Could you please share the output of the vagrant command in debug mode. Thanks! :smile:

[mitchellh]

You are setting config.vm.box instead of things such as lb_config.vm.box. Please use the correct config object and this will work! Sorry Vagrant doesn't catch this automatically. We've tried a few times but it is notoriously tricky.

[asciifaceman]

Finding this 5 years later and its still an issue (online resources show using config.vm still in multi-vm setups) - learned something new, thanks @mitchellh

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