Please read through the Quick Start Guide in the README to get started.

For a quick introduction to setting up Drupal VM, the macOS video tutorial applies somewhat to Linux as well.

There are a few caveats when using Drupal VM on Linux, and this page will try to identify the main gotchas or optimization tips for those wishing to use Drupal VM on a Linux host.

Platform-specific Install Instructions

Always make sure your workstation is up to date (e.g. apt-get update && apt-get upgrade on Debian-like systems, or dnf upgrade or yum upgrade on Fedora/RedHat-like systems). There are sometimes bugs in the base OS packages (e.g. this NFS-related bug) that can be resolved by a simple upgrade.

Ubuntu

Some older Ubuntu Desktop installations don't include NFS support by default, so if you get a message like It appears your machine doesn't support NFS, then you should do the following to install NFS server: sudo apt-get install -y nfs-server.

Fedora

Under Fedora, you might encounter a message like the following upon the first time you use VirtualBox or Vagrant:

$ vagrant status
VirtualBox is complaining that the kernel module is not loaded. Please
run `VBoxManage --version` or open the VirtualBox GUI to see the error
message which should contain instructions on how to fix this error.

In this case, you need to install your system's appropriate kernel module, and you'll also need to install gcc and run a specific VirtualBox installation script (or reinstall VirtualBox entirely) so the kernel module is loaded correctly. Do the following:

  1. sudo dnf install "kernel-devel-uname-r == $(uname -r)"
  2. sudo dnf install gcc
  3. sudo /var/lib/vboxdrv.sh setup

Periodically, when you upgrade your system's Linux kernel, you might need to run steps 2 and 3 above again, or you can uninstall and reinstall VirtualBox (e.g. sudo dnf remove VirtualBox && sudo dnf install VirtualBox).

Troubleshooting Vagrant Synced Folders

Most issues have to do synced folders. These are the most common ones:

'Mounting NFS shared folders...' hangs

There are a few different reasons this particular problem can occur. You may run into the error below during vagrant up:

The following SSH command responded with a non-zero exit status.
Vagrant assumes that this means the command failed!

mount -o '' 192.168.88.1:'/Users/myusername/Sites/drupalvm' /var/www/drupalvm

Stdout from the command:



Stderr from the command:

stdin: is not a tty
mount.nfs: Connection timed out

If the directory you are trying to mount is within an encrypted folder or volume, NFS will very often fail with the above message as well as exportfs: /home/myusername/Sites/drupalvm does not support NFS export. There is no workaround other than sharing a directory that is not encrypted.

If encryption is not the issue then it's likely that either NFS isn't running correctly on your host, certain ports or protocols are being blocked by the system firewall, or you need to add additional mount options to your vagrant_synced_folders configuration. Try the following fixes:

  1. On Ubuntu, if you get a message like It appears your machine doesn't support NFS, run sudo apt-get install -y nfs-server.
  2. Make sure the vboxnet interfaces are not being blocked by your system firewall. For Fedora (and many flavors of Linux), check out this guide for more: Get Vagrant's NFS working under Fedora 20.
  3. Add mount_options: ['vers=3'] to your synced folder definition in config.yml after the other options like local_path, destination, and type.

After attempting any of the above fixes, run vagrant reload --provision to restart the VM and attempt mounting the synced folder again, or vagrant destroy -f && vagrant up to rebuild the VM from scratch.

Intel VT-x virtualization support

On some laptops, Intel VT-x virtualization (which is built into most modern Intel processors) is enabled by default. This allows VirtualBox to run virtual machines efficiently using the CPU itself instead of software CPU emulation. If you get a message like "VT-x is disabled in the bios for both all cpu modes" or something similar, you may need to enter your computer's BIOS or UEFI settings and enable this virtualization support.