diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 57a205154..f03144c38 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -19,6 +19,8 @@ IMPROVEMENTS:
   - providers/virtualbox: Enable symlinks for VirtualBox 4.1. [GH-2414]
   - providers/virtualbox: default VM name now includes milliseconds with
     a random number to try to avoid conflicts in CI environments. [GH-2482]
+  - provisioners/shell: Added `keep_color` option to not automatically color
+    output based on stdout/stderr. [GH-2505]
   - synced\_folders/nfs: Specify `nfs_udp` to false to disable UDP based
     NFS folders. [GH-2304]
 
diff --git a/plugins/provisioners/shell/provisioner.rb b/plugins/provisioners/shell/provisioner.rb
index 1444ef18b..ab8579894 100644
--- a/plugins/provisioners/shell/provisioner.rb
+++ b/plugins/provisioners/shell/provisioner.rb
@@ -35,17 +35,13 @@ module VagrantPlugins
                 # Output the data with the proper color based on the stream.
                 color = type == :stdout ? :green : :red
 
-                # Note: Be sure to chomp the data to avoid the newlines that the
-                # Chef outputs.
-                if config.keep_color
-                  @machine.env.ui.info(
-                      data,
-                      :new_line => false, :prefix => false)
-                else
-                  @machine.env.ui.info(
-                      data,
-                      :color => color, :new_line => false, :prefix => false)
-                end
+                options = {
+                  new_line: false,
+                  prefix: false,
+                }
+                options[:color] = color if !config.keep_color
+
+                @machine.env.ui.info(data, options)
               end
             end
           end
diff --git a/website/docs/source/v2/provisioning/shell.html.md b/website/docs/source/v2/provisioning/shell.html.md
index 03413b628..28edeb519 100644
--- a/website/docs/source/v2/provisioning/shell.html.md
+++ b/website/docs/source/v2/provisioning/shell.html.md
@@ -45,9 +45,10 @@ The remainder of the available options are optional:
   be uploaded to. The script is uploaded as the SSH user over SCP, so this
   location must be writable to that user. By default this is "/tmp/vagrant-shell"
 
-* `keep_color` (boolean) - Vagrant automatically color output in green and
-  red (errors). If this is true, then Vagrant will not do this. By default
-  this is "false". This allow you to have custom colored output.
+* `keep_color` (boolean) - Vagrant automatically colors output in green and
+  red depending on whether the output is from stdout or stderr. If this is
+  true, Vagrant will not do this, allowing the native colors from the script
+  to be outputted.
 
 <a name="inline-scripts"></a>
 ## Inline Scripts