Apache fails to start on Vagrant

Question

In my Vagrant environment I have a guest Ubuntu Virtualbox with a LAMP with default settings.

I have my source code on the host machine in the same folder as my Vagrantfile. So on the guest Ubuntu I can access the files in the mounted /vagrant dir like this

/vagrant
  /mysite
    /index.php
  /Vagrantfile

Now in my Apache config I add a line

Alias /mysite /vagrant/mysite

After reloading config and restarting apache I can go to localhost:8558/mysite/index.php and it works.

The problem is that when I reload Virtualbox with vagrant reload it starts Apache service before mounting the /vagrant folder. So Apache can't find the aliased dir and fails to start. i have to start it manually then

My question is - is there a way to delay Apache start so that it starts after the mounting?

Update: As a workaround I added script to the crontab that starts apache 30 seconds after the boot as described here. But I wonder if there is a better solution.

Answer 1

while upstart probably is a valid option, I had several issues using it with vagrant. I had to run several tasks that needed to be run as a privileged user, which I did not manage to get working with upstart.

Starting from version 1.6.0 (May 6, 2014), vagrant provides the option to run a specific provisioner every time, so also after booting a halted VM with vagrant up.

In your Vagrantfile, add:

# a file, eg after-boot.sh
config.vm.provision "shell", path: "after-boot.sh", run: "always"
# or just inline
config.vm.provision "shell", inline: "service apache2 restart", run: "always"

note the run: "always", this will force vagrant to run the provisioner always, obviously it works just as well with any other provisioning system like chef or puppet.

Answer 2

I would like to add a little to Zauberfisch's answer (Apache fails to start on Vagrant)

What needed to happen was this command needed to be run as a superuser AKA 'Sudo' so this was the command that was needed:

`config.vm.provision "shell", inline: "sudo service apache2 restart", run: "always"`

The reason why this didn't work for you without the sudo appears to be that Vagrant tries to run the command without /usr/sbin in PATH. For me, this worked just as well:

`config.vm.provision "shell", inline: "/usr/sbin/service apache2 restart", run: "always"`

Answer 3

If upstart is installed (as in Ubuntu), Vagrant emits "vagrant-mounted" event. See https://serverfault.com/a/568033/179583 to get the idea. In your script you can (re)start the Apache server.

Btw, I have a feeling that newer Apache versions just warn, but still start even if the doc root doesn't exist. The same with nginx.