How to keep VirtualBox logs??

[Bruno Vernay]

The VirtualBox forums are asking for logs and I have a hard time to get them since Packer clean up everything.

I ended up doing "tail -f VBMachines/my-vm/Logs/VBox.log" but maybe there is a better way?

The --debug step-by-step is not an option since there is a timing issue and I don't reproduce the problem if I introduce long delays.

Also I have logs up to the shutdown I guess, but how could I get the post_manage logs ???

Is there a do not clean up option ??

Thanks

[Loren Gordon]

Is packer making it to the "provisioners" stage? If so, and if you know the path to the file you want, you could try using the `direction` parameter of the "file" provisioner to download it.

        {

            "type": "file",

            "source": "/tmp/manifest.log",

            "destination": "./manifest.log",

            "direction": "download"

        }

https://www.packer.io/docs/provisioners/file.html#direction

-Loren

[Bruno Vernay]

Sorry, I was not clear: I do not want to copy files between host/guest.

It all happens on the host.  VirtualBox keeps a logs of its operations in its machine directory.  But all this is cleaned up by Packer in case of failure.

That is my problem ...

[Loren Gordon]

Oh right. I see. On my system I don't see logs in my machine directory. But I use the `output_directory` parameter to create the machine in an alternate location. If you use the `output_directory` parameter, perhaps the logs would be preserved wherever they are saved and only the virtual disk files would be cleaned up?

[Bruno Vernay]

If I understand correctly, Packer:

1. Creates the Machine
2. Provision it
3. shutdown
4. runs post_manage (if there are no session still hanging)
5. Export the machine as an ovf
6. unregister and delete the machine (including VirtualBox logs)

Then I import the OVF back to VirtualBox.

[Bruno Vernay]

We crossed our post.

I was not talking about Packer output directory, but VirtualBox machine directory ...