vagrant/website/docs/source/v2/boxes/format.html.md

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Box File Format	boxes-format

Box File Format

In the past, boxes were just tar files of VirtualBox exports. With Vagrant supporting multiple providers and versioning now, box files are slightly more complicated.

Box files made for Vagrant 1.0.x (the VirtualBox export tar files) continue to work with Vagrant today. When Vagrant encounters one of these old boxes, it automatically updates it internally to the new format.

Today, box files are split into two different components:

• Box Metadata - This is a JSON document that specifies the name of the box, a description, available versions, available providers, and URLs to the actual box files (next component) for each provider and version. If this metadata doesn't exist, a box file can still be added directly, but it will not support versioning and updating.

• Box File - This is a compressed (tar, tar.gz, zip) file that is specific to a single provider and can contain anything. Vagrant core doesn't ever use the contents of this file. Instead, they are passed to the provider. Therefore, a VirtualBox box file has different contents from a VMware box file and so on.

Each component is covered in more detail below.

Box Metadata

The metadata is an optional component for a box (but highly recommended) that enables versioning, updating, multiple providers from a single file, and more.

You don't need to manually make the metadata. If you have an account with Vagrant Cloud, you can create boxes there, and Vagrant Cloud automatically creates the metadata for you. The format is still documented here.

It is a JSON document, structured in the following way:

{
  "name": "hashicorp/precise64",
  "description": "This box contains Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64-bit.",
  "versions": [{
    "version": "0.1.0",
    "providers": [{
      "name": "virtualbox",
      "url": "http://somewhere.com/precise64_010_virtualbox.box",
      "checksum_type": "sha1",
      "checksum": "foo"
    }]
  }]
}

As you can see, the JSON document can describe multiple versions of a box, multiple providers, and can add/remove providers in different versions.

This JSON file can be passed directly to vagrant box add and Vagrant will install the proper version of the box. If multiple providers are available, Vagrant will ask what provider you want to use.

Box File

The actual box file is the required portion for Vagrant. It is recommended you always use a metadata file alongside a box file, but direct box files are supported for legacy reasons in Vagrant.

Box files are compressed using tar, tar.gz, or zip. The contents of the archive can be anything, and is specific to each provider. Vagrant core itself only unpacks the boxes for use later.

Within the archive, Vagrant does expect a single file: "metadata.json". This is a JSON file that is completely unrelated to the above "box metadata" component. This file must contain at least the "provider" key with the provider the box is for. For example, if your box was for VirtualBox, the metadata.json would look like this:

{
  "provider": "virtualbox"
}

If there is no metadata.json file or the file does not contain valid JSON with at least a "provider" key, then Vagrant will error when adding the box.