Here’s a list of things that currently fail when trying to run vagrant under Arch. Hopefully I hit most of the keywords from errors and you’re reading this because you ran into one of those.

Vagrant is not an official Arch package.

It’s in AUR though - https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/vagrant/ (vote for it!) and `pacaur -S vagrant` will happily install it.

Wrong guest additions version

Arch will most likely install virtualbox with a different api than guest additions in the box you downloaded from the internet. This is easily fixable by either creating your own compatible box, or adding a plugin via:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest

This will make sure that after every new vm is started, the guest additions version will be checked. If it doesn’t match or isn’t installed, guest additions will be downloaded and forced to comply.

If you provide the iso, the addins will be installed from the CD. No, the internet doesn’t know how to make sure the guest additions CD is mounted automatically. No, you can’t access the “Install guest additions” menu unless you use the gui for the vm. No, it doesn’t make sense.

Reading from shared folders hangs

If reading from shared folders causes freezes and stracing results in just a looped call to `getdents()`, you have incompatible guest additions. Problem described here. Solution - see above.

Rebooting the VM results in a freeze

If you don’t update guest additions, shared folders don’t work. If you do, the host will freeze during the bootup after the first reset. Yes it does. That’s all.

There’s a kvm module for vagrant!

Some sanity can be hopefully restored by using KVM/libvirt instead of vbox. There are two modules - vagrant-kvm and vagrant-libvirt. Both will fail to install.

How to install vagrant-kvm

Trying to simply run `vagrant plugin install vagrant-kvm` will result in:

Installing the 'vagrant-kvm' plugin. This can take a few minutes...
...in `run': ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension. (Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError)

The log in `mkmf.log` will tell you that:

/usr/..../libvirt.so: undefined reference to `curl_global_init@CURL_OPENSSL_4'

(and many other functions too). The problem is described here and all you need to do is move away the following files from `/opt/vagrant/embedded/lib/`: `libcurl.so`, `libcurl.so.4`, `libcurl.so.4….` (whichever version you have at the moment). Finally move `/opt/vagrant/embedded/lib/pkgconfig/libcurl.pc`. Now `vagrant-kvm` will install succesfully and you can move the files back into the original place.

Vagrant-kvm doesn’t work because “authentication failed: polkit”

Of course it won’t. Arch simply installs libvirt and leaves you holding the baby. Read the arch wiki and setup the polkit rules. Also you have to create the libvirt group, even though the wiki lists it as an alternative way.

Vagrant-kvm doesn’t work because “Failed to connect socket to …”

Restart your libvirt using:

sudo systemctl restart libvirtd

Vagrant-kvm doesn’t work becuase “Could not create file: Permission denied”

At some point when you weren’t looking something changed the owner of `\~/.vagrant.d/tmp/storage-pool` to root. That means the process spawning the vm is not running as you anymore and most likely you removed the `rx’ rights from “others” on your home directory. For this one I don’t have a good solution anymore. You’ll have to give ‘x’ rights on your home either to all (`chmod o+x \~`), or just to `users` and `libvirt` using the acls.

Vagrant-kvm doesn’t work because “VagrantPlugins::ProviderKvm::Action::NFS”

You’re right, it doesn’t. You have to repackage vagrant-kvm from master branch, because the fix is not released yet (as of March 2014). Read the upstream issue and follow the gem repackaging instructions.