virtualbox.org

I have setup vyos in virtualbox and everything works fine until I exit and reboot - vb isn't saving the configurations I make, specifically an ip address I assign. Everything is fine (can ping, etc.) until I exit.

For some reason vb isn't saving the config and I believe it must be a setting I've misconfigured. How do I get vb to actually save the configurations.

I am using "commit", "save" and I have checked that the changes are made to the config.boot file but when I reboot they are not being saved. Any idea as to what's happening here? I assume vb is not saving but I'm not really sure. I also save the project in gns3. Has anyone experienced this issue? Frustrating.

I'm running vb on a windows 7 pc.

I would think it's up to vyos to save its settings, not VirtualBox.
I also assume vyos is not officially supported.

loukingjr wrote:I would think it's up to vyos to save its settings, not VirtualBox.
I also assume vyos is not officially supported.

Vyos does save it's settings but it appears it's not being written to disk when I exit vb. Not sure why though. That's why I thought it might be a vb setting issue.

Vyos may not be officially supported but it is known to work w/o issues in vb, so that should have no bearing.

Ok, I'll get to the bottom of it. Just need to dig a little deeper.

When a guest setting is saved it is written to the .vdi file long before the guest or VB is shutdown.

It's kind of like saying I changed the wallpaper for my guest but when I shutdown, VirtualBox forgets what wallpaper I switched to. Can't happen because of VirtualBox.

loukingjr wrote:When a guest setting is saved it is written to the .vdi file long before VB is shutdown.

It's kind of like saying I changed the wallpaper for my guest but when I shutdown, VirtualBox forgets what wallpaper I switched to. Can't happen because of VirtualBox.

So that should eliminate vb but why would the configurations save to the config.boot file but then when I shutdown/reboot vb they revert? I'll look at it more from the vyos end.

I think looking at vyos is your best bet.

Just conjecture on my part but it sounds like vyos may have a default config.boot file that it restores every time it boots.

Virtualbox does have a way of restoring a guest to the default configuration, using "immutable" drives (see the help file, section 5.4) With this setup, changes and data made after the guest's drive is made immutable will be lost when the guest is shut down.

Did you do anything with your guest even remotely connected with this feature?

If you can't remember (and I have never played with it so I wouldn't be able to recognize it in your guest's log file if it was used in your guest), there is a simple way to test for it. Make a test file on the desktop in the guest or some other guest folder you can remember. The shut down and restart the guest. If the file is still there, you have not set your guest's drive to immutable, and your vyos issue is with vyos. If your test file disappears, you may have immutable turned on. Report back what you get.

Good idea.

Alright, got it sorted. I hadn't fully installed the system (vyos) in Virtualbox. I was working off the image and I suppose that is why it wasn't saving after reboot. Once I fully installed vyos and competed a couple of other steps, it would retained the save config on reboot.

I found a nice tutorial "Vyatta OS under Virtualbox in GNS3" (which is exactly what I'm doing) that explained things nicely.

Very much appreciate everyone's help and suggestions. Especially the help with eliminating issues that couldn't possibly be the cause.

Rebooting off the iso instead of the installed OS would also "reset" settings... Hmmm why didn't I think of that?

Good catch!

jessnew, this was partly my fault. My very first thought was it's being run off the image, but being an optimist, I believed you when you said vyos was installed. I need to be more pessimistic.