Vagrant Not Starting Up. User that created VM doesn't match current user

Question

I was trying to start up my vagrant machine, so I navigated to the folder where my vagrantfile is, and used:

vagrant up && vagrant ssh

but I got the following error message:

The VirtualBox VM was created with a user that doesn't match the current user running Vagrant. VirtualBox requires that the same user be used to manage the VM that was created. Please re-run Vagrant with that user. This is not a Vagrant issue.

The UID used to create the VM was: 0 Your UID is: 501

I also tried with sudo, but that didn't work either.

Do I need to switch UID's? And how would I do this?

score 266 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 03 '17 at 22:37

266

I ran into the same problem today.
I edited my UID by opening the file .vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/creator_uid and changing the 501 to a 0.

After I saved the file, the command vagrant up worked like a champ.

NB: the .vagrant folder is in the same directory as your Vagrantfile, where you ran vagrant up

edited Mar 03 '17 at 22:37

Cheeso

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answered Aug 27 '15 at 18:25

Fred

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I found myself in the same situation, I had tar up a tarball from an ubuntu machine. So simply removing the `rm -rf .vagrant` dir that got created in ubuntu also resolved the issue. – Jeff Sheffield Sep 04 '15 at 16:49
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// , Wow, thanks, @Fred! Stackoverflow serves us at its best with this kind of precise, difficult to find solution from someone who has had to deal with it before. Where will I usually find the `.vagrant` folder on Unix based machines? – Nathan Basanese Nov 30 '15 at 23:02
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Not sure, @Nathan. Can you run a locate command for the creator_uid file? Try "locate creator_uid" at the command line to find the path to the file to edit. – Fred Dec 01 '15 at 19:13
// , That worked. I use my CEntOS box from `~/vagrant/centos/`. It looks like the `creator_uid` file was at `~/vagrant/centos/.vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/creator_uid`. This seems to mean that the `.vagrant` in this answer usually has the same directory as the `Vagrantfile` for the problem machine. – Nathan Basanese Dec 01 '15 at 20:34
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In my case, the creator_uid contained "90210", but my UID is 502. Rather than change the UID in the file to 0 as this solution suggested, I changed it to 502. Worked well. – Mr. Lance E Sloan Jan 13 '16 at 21:51
Thanks! I created a VM on my Mac, and then had my machine cloned to a new Mac. Everything about the system (other than the improved hardware) behaved the same, as far as I can tell, until I ran into this. Apparently my UID changed from 510 to 502. – olanmills Sep 07 '16 at 22:00
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@NathanBasanese `.vagrant` folder is at the same location you ran `vagrant up` – Harish Reddy Feb 10 '17 at 14:17
Why can't I find the "creator_uid" file in the given directory? – Wang Jun 21 '17 at 13:52
Remove simply `.vagrant` at the root of your Vagrantfile – Jean-Marc Amon Sep 22 '17 at 11:40
I worked I had same issue just made change in creatoruid file – user869123 Apr 21 '18 at 07:29
It worked, although my vagrant file was at `.vagrant/machines/dev/virtualbox/creator_uid` – Ram Patra Jun 27 '18 at 15:21

score 37 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 06 '15 at 18:50

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Ran into this problem in a slightly different situation. The issue was that ".vagrant" was checked into the git repo, and the committer was running under a different UID than I was.

Solution: add .vagrant to .gitignore.

answered Oct 06 '15 at 18:50

Chris Cogdon

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This was the issue I faced; however, simply adding `.vagrant` to `.gitignore` will *not* solve the issue - YMMV, but `git rm -rf .vagrant` should be run too. – Marco Massenzio Nov 14 '15 at 02:49
@marco: You're absolutely right. if ".vagrant" was added to the repo, adding it to .gitignore afterwards is too late :) – Chris Cogdon Nov 18 '15 at 00:37

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 21 '16 at 21:08

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I tried changing the id in .vagrant\machines\default\virtualbox\creator_uid and that did not work for me but deleting the file, creator_uid did the trick.

answered Jan 21 '16 at 21:08

Canje027

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score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 16 '16 at 14:43

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I ran into the same issue, but in my case it was because I had ran vagrant up under sudo, and when I came back to it later I'd forgotten.

Silly mistake, but I'm sure it's not the first time it's happened someone :)

answered Feb 16 '16 at 14:43

ConorLuddy

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Same issue here, forgot to run under `sudo`. But the error message is not very indicative of that unfortunately. – Zac Blazic Apr 10 '16 at 20:39
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Same here. Used `sudo vagrant up` but then used `vagrant ssh` which threw the different user error. Forgot to use `sudo vagrnt ssh` which worked fine. – Hondaman900 Feb 12 '21 at 22:47

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 09 '17 at 08:31

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just change user ID here .vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/creator_uid

answered Sep 09 '17 at 08:31

Oleg Tokar

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score 2 · Answer 6 · edited May 04 '17 at 15:04

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It's possible you ran the command: sudo vagrant up

This would mean as your regular user you are unable to see or even delete the /.vagrant folder and files.

If so, simply run: sudo vagrant destroy -f

Then you should be able to run (as your normal user account): vagrant up

edited May 04 '17 at 15:04

Mad Physicist

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answered May 04 '17 at 14:34

brandon

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score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Sep 17 '15 at 08:49

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According to the VirtualBox User Manual:

As a security measure, the Linux implementation of internal networking only allows VMs running under the same user ID to establish an internal network.

In other words, you have to switch to root (UID 0) to run it.

edited Sep 17 '15 at 08:49

Frederic Henri

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answered Jul 27 '15 at 02:53

dmargol1

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Shouldn't run as sudo, just delete your .vagrant directory and run as your user – Jeremy Oct 24 '15 at 18:19

score 1 · Answer 8 · edited Jun 15 '16 at 01:52

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Run the following commands:

bash
sudo vagrant up

edited Jun 15 '16 at 01:52

Enamul Hassan

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answered Jun 15 '16 at 00:31

vixadd

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score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Nov 17 '22 at 04:41

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I faced the same problem. I deleted in .vagrant directory inside the directory where Vagrantfile was present. Then it worked.

answered Nov 17 '22 at 04:41

abasar

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jan 25 '17 at 08:38

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I had the same problem after I got a new computer. Instead of of copying all files from my old computer, I had to check out the vagrant projects again from the git repository. After that, vagrant up worked fine.

answered Jan 25 '17 at 08:38

matschmann

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score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Sep 19 '17 at 03:16

Just to add on to Fred's https://stackoverflow.com/a/32256848/2065804 answer.

Make sure you changed the correct VM's machine. For example, my VM name is NOT default but rather called homestead-7.

So the path to the correct one is:

.vagrant/machines/homestead-7/virtualbox/creator_uid

and not:

.vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/creator_uid

This error happened to me when I changed my Mac to another Mac.

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Oct 23 '17 at 12:03

Remove the content of .vagrant hidden dir in the current working dir and re-run vagrant up command. Error, because of copy / backup of Vagranfile /s from one system to another system. user id's mismath to the Vagrant to bring up the environment.. hope it helps cheers..!! :)) if u don't wish to delete that folder u can update uid of current user in file in the hidden dir of current working dir, i.e .vagrant/machines/jenkins/virtualbox$ vim creator_uid

Rodrigo Justino da Costa · Answer 13 · 2018-11-19T17:57:46.200

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I've faced the same situation, but I have a multi-machine Vagrantfile.

To replace the old uid (1001) by the new one (1000) I've used the following command:

for i in $(find . -type f -iname "creator_uid" ) ; do echo 1000 > $i ; done

edited Nov 19 '18 at 17:57

answered Nov 19 '18 at 17:49

Rodrigo Justino da Costa

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score 0 · Answer 14 · edited Dec 09 '18 at 12:29

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I had the same problem I had forgotten to place sudo before vagrant up, you just have to execute sudo vagrant up in the folder of your vagrant file.

edited Dec 09 '18 at 12:29

Cindy Meister

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answered Dec 08 '18 at 23:31

Luis Matos

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score 0 · Answer 15 · answered May 10 '20 at 03:27

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I have Multi-Machine vagrant file. I have checked the creator_uid and it is 0 but still unable to load. So I have deleted creator_uid file for all the Multi-Machine and it worked. Path should be .vagrant\machines\<machine_name>\virtualbox

answered May 10 '20 at 03:27

vkrams

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score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Oct 30 '21 at 03:58

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I encountered the same issue but it's because I cloned an exercise file from a GitHub repo. I found the issue being the .vagrant file included in the repository.

What worked for me is deleting the .vagrant directory and rerun vagrant up

answered Oct 30 '21 at 03:58

Zarex Alvin Daria

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score -2 · Answer 17 · answered Dec 04 '21 at 12:47

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rm -rf .vagrant/machines/default/creator_uid

answered Dec 04 '21 at 12:47

Garik

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Vagrant Not Starting Up. User that created VM doesn't match current user

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