Base box documentation needs update to include vagrant package command

[mguterl]

Currently the documentation at http://vagrantup.com/docs/base_boxes.html gives you instructions for packaging a new base box by using tar by hand.

http://vagrantup.com/docs/boxes.html briefly mentions creating boxes and shows using the vagrant package command. I think the base_boxes.html page should be updated to reflect the use of this command rather than manual tarring.

[mitchellh]

mguterl,

The vagrant package command uses the current vagrant environment's machine to package. Since base boxes must be created in VirtualBox (outside of any vagrant environment), this is currently not possible.

vagrant package and the way packaging done will be changed quite a bit in the future to make it much easier =]

Thanks for the suggestion,
Mitchell

[mitchellh]

mguterl,

You'll be happy to hear that base boxes can now be packaged with vagrant package. The commit which makes this possible is here: http://github.com/mitchellh/vagrant/commit/f8dee9adf9542c560ea33159438d89c61942db8d

The documentation (in the docs branch) will be updated shortly, but in short: This change simplifies base box creation quite a bit. It completely removes the step requiring base box creators to "copy down the MAC address" since Vagrant now automates this.

Mitchell

[mitchellh]

mguterl,

Here is an example, by the way, of how this works: Say you create a base box and its named "karmic" within VirtualBox. After you get ruby/chef/whatever-you-want setup on the base box, you can now package it up into a box by going into any directory and typing the following:

vagrant package --base karmic

You can still include your own custom Vagrantfiles in the base box packages as well (to forward ports or whatever you wish):

vagrant package --base karmic --include Vagrantfile

Simple!