Created attachment 217771 [details] ubuntu .json spec for packer 11.3-RELEASE-p6 packer-1.6.0 virtualbox-ose-5.2.44 virtualbox-ose-additions-5.2.44 virtualbox-ose-kmod-5.2.44 vagrant-2.2.9_1 All ports installed using pkg install on 2020-08-26 If I create a ubuntu-18.04.5 VM from ubuntu-18.04.5-live-server-amd64.iso directly in virtualbox, the VM is created successfully. However, if I try to do the same thing using packer, the VM boots and starts the install process, automatically filling in prompts up to the point of choosing the disk allocation. From there I choose the defaults, set user id, machine name, password, check box for ssh. The install begins but then fails when fetching updates of some sort (about #16) and reboots and starts the install process all over again. Unfortunately, it sticks a big error box up over the output and then crashes and reboots quickly, so I can't really see what's going on. packer .json file is attached. Side note: despite the fact that the virtualbox-ose-additions are installed, they are not found by virtualbox. They are fetched as part of the build process so I don't think that's the issue. I have modified the system as recommended: kldload vboxdrv.ko sysctl vfs.aio.max_buf_aio=8192 sysctl vfs.aio.max_aio_queue_per_proc=65536 sysctl vfs.aio.max_aio_per_proc=8192 sysctl vfs.aio.max_aio_queue=65536
Why is it a FreeBSD bug? You should ask on an Ubuntu bug tracker.
I thought it was an fbsd bug related to the interplay between packer and virtualbox, based on the fact that a vagrant instance comes up fine and a virtualbox instance comes up fine. However, an attempt to boot from the iso on bare (different) hardware exhibits the same problem -- pretty weird. I've verified the checksum. So checking further, will take some time. It's obviously not a fbsd bug.
I'm closing this as I'm unlikely to get back to it. My needs for a virtualbox environment have changed and I'm likely to install bhyve when the time comes instead to get some other linux installations to run. This was clearly not an fbsd bug.