Support for vagrant up --parallel

[cluelesscoder]

The vagrant documentation says this in the Provider->Virtualbox->Usage:

The Vagrant VirtualBox provider does not support parallel execution at this time. Specifying the --parallel option will have no effect.

I assume this is on the Virtualbox end rather than Vagrant. Has there been any discussion on this? Maybe a feature request ticket?

[Perryg]

We don't follow or use vagrant. So that part we can not tell you. As for parallel operation it is supported to a point that the other virtualizers have to play nice and not take total control of VMX.

[cluelesscoder]

Could you clarify "As for parallel operation it is supported to a point that the other virtualizers have to play nice and not take total control of VMX"? Is there any documentation on that?

It sounds like you think it is probably realistic for vagrant to bring these virtual machines up at the same time.

[Perryg]

I have no idea what vagrant can and can not do as I have already stated. As for parallel operation ( meaning other virtualizers ) the other virtualizer must not use VMX exclusive. Some do and some don't. As far as documentation there is none that I know of. Just experience. VirtualBox is designed in a way that is not exclusive so it can run along side of other virtualizers that do not use exclusive mode but not if they are exclusive. For reference MS Hyper-v is exclusive and VirtualBox can not run in VT-x mode. You can get it to run in 32-bit mode AFAIK ( except Windows => 8.1 ) but all guests will be slow.

[mpack]

If you have questions about the Vagrant documentation then you really need to ask them about it.

[cluelesscoder]

Thank you for your help. I looked at at the vagrant mailing list and found the Adding support for --parallel into VirtualBox provider thread but it doesn't seem like the people commenting know why it wasn't supported. Looks like there are a few threads, including one with a response from the developer (Mitchell Hashimoto) who says simply "Parallelization is not implemented for every provider. VirtualBox is one of those providers.". Also asked on the IRC channel.
Just to clarify, this would be support for parallel operation with fellow Virtualbox providers. Not sure if that was clear based on Perryg's comment about "other virtualizers that do not use exclusive mode but not if they are exclusive".

[michaln]

It clearly wasn't clear It seems this is a strictly Vagrant specific issue. It seems to be about running VirtualBox VMs in parallel, not running VirtualBox alongside some other hypervisor.