Adapt Learning Community: Vagrant virtualbox selection

Hello

I hope that this is the right place to ask this.

I have a challenge that makes it impossible to trust adapt_learning as a tool for further development until I find out how to fix this error.

Sometimes, on my corporate standalone PC, when I reboot and run the "vagrant up" command it installs a new virtual machine and hence all the work done on the course so far is lost. It seems that all the virtual machines are still there (See screenshot).

Is there a way to force a specific virtual machine to run from the command line "vagrant up"? As I said, it seems that all the older virtual machines are still there, but sometimes, after a reboot the "vagrant up" command initiates a complete new installtion, and than uses the latest one until it installes another new virtual machine and then runs that instead.

It's pretty frustration.

Maybe it's a corporate issue for server-side documents. Maybe I can define were vagrant stores the virtual machines as in: local PC and not on the server?

Best Regards

Olav

Screenshot from the virtual machines showing the differnt versions

Hi again.

If this is the wrong forum can admin plz forward this post to the correct forum?

Virtual file location

To clarify: Above is a screenshot of my virtual machines. It seems that the "vagrant up" command creates a new machine at random.

Is there a way to specify which virtual machine to use when issuing the "vagrant" command, or is there any other way to force adapt to use a specific virtual machine?

I hope somebody can point me in the right direction.

Best regards

Olav

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Seems like I'm spamming my own thread, but it could be valuable for others with a similar problem, so I present my workaround for the time-being. I'd still hope somebody could provide feedback on the choice of virtual machine.

What I've done to get around this problem is to specify in "Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager" the location on where to store the virtual machines. I've chosen the same folder where the adapt framework is installed. That way I can use an external drive that is not linked to the corporation server, and I probably can take the external harddrive and use it and can continue working on different machines by connecting the harddrive.

In this screenshot I used the same folder as the adapt learning framework, but I'll try the above method and come back here to tell you if it worked or not.

Specifying location of virtual machines

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Olav, I'm sorry I can't be of much help to you on this. Your problem seems pretty serious, but I'm not to clear on how the VirtualBox works with Adapt. On my instance, I never even needed to open VirtualBox- only worked with the the AT root folder and Vagrant via CLI. (vagrant up, vagrant halt) My particular problem was in upgrading the AT and it was headache after headache. I was working on trying to fix the many issues with my Vagrant install of the AT and while I did fix many, I've since given up. My other install of the AT was using the manual server install on my PC. I've had much better success with this, so I would recommend doing this one, rather than continuing with the Vagrant install method. I think even if you get past this issue, you might run into the same problem I had with upgrading the AT.

I understand your frustration, but don't give up. It is a really cool tool once you tame it!

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Thanks for the time in sharing your experience and advice Khari. I've tried the manual server install at one point, but had some issues there also that didn't get me to up the framework. I have been using the Vagrant solution on 2 different computers with no problems so far so until now I believe it to be my best bet.

I still haven't tried the workaround of putting the virtual machines on an external drive with Vagrant. I hope that will fix this.

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Since I brought this up, I will update as I do workarounds. The vagrant issue has not been solved, but I got around the problem and the solution now works for me.

I ditched the vagrant/virtual server solution (thanks for the motivational reply Khari) and tried to get a server installation working. This time I managed this without errors.

The thing I did was to install everything on to an external harddrive. That goes for all prerequisites that usually goes onto the c:\ directory (Windows).

To get the system running on multiple systems there are two options:

This I've tried and it works: Installing the prerequisites on all computers that will be used to edit the course with adapt learning, but onto the same external harddrive. Now it is possible for me to take the harddrive to any of the computers with the prerequisites and continue to work on the course with adapt learning.

Ed.: (This wasn't the initial problem, but is nice to have the added insurance that the work on the course is more secure to loss of data as backup is convenient.)

This I haven't tried, but it will most likely work too. Another possible solution is to install the prerequisites onto a networked shared folder. I guess you should map the network drive/folder to the same driveletter in Windows so that every machine that will access the course get the same path to the resources. Only one person at the time will be able to access this, but using a VPN it's possible to continue working with the course from any location.

It would be great however if somebody with a vagrant solution could share this here.

Olav

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Olav, how is this working for you? I think if you are okay with using the framework ( or at least the AT initially than switching to the framework) you shouldn't lose any content. I find that using the AT helps me work faster, by putting the course together, then later doing the customization once everything is in place. The lacl of cross-compatibility (between the AT and framework) for some of the plugins are a problem, but I imagine in time this will get sorted out

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Thank's for asking. It's working great so-far by using the AT installation with MongoDB and Nodeserver. I too think it sounds like a good idea to wait with the customization until everything is in place. Our graphical designer will have a go once all the "pedagogical stuff" is in place. :-)

I think it's a fantastic tool, and may over time become less technical demanding to the end-user. :-)

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