Vb.customize ‘storageattach’ mounts the disk first time, but changes are lost after vagrant halt ; vagrant up

vagrantvirtualbox

i am new to vagrant and am trying to add a second disk to the virtual machine i am cooking up with vagrant.
i figured out how to attach the disk when the VM is first booted, but when i bring the machine down
and then back up again (with 'vagrant up –provision' to make sure the provisioners run) the changes i make to the disk
are lost.

I ran both times with logging and the log output for the second run (the reboot after the machine is initially provisioned) shows that the storageattach command being executed. But every file i create under "/dev/shm" (which seems to be the mount point for the second disk) disappears.

The failure mode is:

vagrant up …

 touch /dev/shm/some.file
 ls /dev/shm/some.file   # see output here...

vagrant halt

vagrant up –provision

ls /dev/shm/some.file     #  no such file or directory.. where did it go ?

any tips would be most appreciated.

My Vagrantfile is:

… 

Vagrant.require_version ">= 1.4.3"
VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = "2"
disk = './secondDisk.vdi'
BOX_NAME="test"

Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|
    config.vm.define :master do |master|
        master.vm.box = "centos65"
        master.vm.box_url = "https://github.com/2creatives/vagrant-centos/releases/download/v6.5.1/centos65-x86_64-20131205.box"
        master.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |v|
          v.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--memory", "4196"]
          v.name = BOX_NAME
        end
        master.vm.network :private_network, ip: "192.168.33.10"
        master.vm.hostname = BOX_NAME
    end

    config.vm.synced_folder(".", "/vagrant",
        :owner => "vagrant",
        :group => "vagrant",
        :mount_options => ['dmode=777','fmode=777']
    )
    config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
        unless File.exist?(disk)
            vb.customize ['createhd', '--filename', disk, '--variant', 'Fixed', '--size', 1 * 1024]
        end
        vb.customize ['storageattach', :id,  '--storagectl', 'SATA', '--port', 1, '--device', 0, '--type', 'hdd', '--medium', disk]
    end
end

and here is the log output of the second 'vagrant up –provision' [ i am using –provision to ensure all provisioning steps are done with each vagrant up ]:

INFO sanedefaults: Automatically figuring out whether to enable/disable NAT DNS proxy...
 INFO subprocess: Starting process: ["C:\\Program Files\\Oracle\\VirtualBox\\VBoxManage.exe", "modifyvm", "ea5c09                              e7-11e7-4630-a7ca-ec66461b9eb6", "--natdnsproxy1", "on"]
DEBUG subprocess: Selecting on IO
DEBUG subprocess: Waiting for process to exit. Remaining to timeout: 32000
DEBUG subprocess: Exit status: 0
 INFO warden: Calling IN action: #<VagrantPlugins::ProviderVirtualBox::Action::Customize:0x3dc9818>
 INFO interface: info: Running 'pre-boot' VM customizations...
 INFO interface: info: ==> master: Running 'pre-boot' VM customizations...
==> master: Running 'pre-boot' VM customizations...
 INFO subprocess: Starting process: ["C:\\Program Files\\Oracle\\VirtualBox\\VBoxManage.exe", "storageattach", "e                              a5c09e7-11e7-4630-a7ca-ec66461b9eb6", "--storagectl", "SATA", "--port", "1", "--device", "0", "--type", "hdd", "-                              -medium", "./secondDisk.vdi"]
DEBUG subprocess: Selecting on IO
DEBUG subprocess: Waiting for process to exit. Remaining to timeout: 32000
DEBUG subprocess: Exit status: 0

Best Answer

Thanks to BMW for the well engineered and stylish answer, and Peter as well. The referenced article (gist.github.com/leifg/4713995) had the magic, which i will reproduce below in a Vagrant script and a corresponding bootstrap file that makes a file system from the newly added second disk, and adds it to /etc/fstab. This completely solves my problem [ no more disappearing data ].

Vagrantfile:

Vagrant.require_version ">= 1.4.3"
VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = "2"

disk = './secondDisk.vdi' 
BOX_NAME="test"


Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|
    config.vm.define :master do |master|
        master.vm.box = "centos65"
        master.vm.box_url = "https://github.com/2creatives/vagrant-centos/releases/download/v6.5.1/centos65-x86_64-20131205.box"
        master.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |v|
          v.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--memory", "4196"]
          v.name = BOX_NAME
        end
        master.vm.network :private_network, ip: "192.168.33.10"
        master.vm.hostname = BOX_NAME
    end

    config.vm.synced_folder(".", "/vagrant",
        :owner => "vagrant",
        :group => "vagrant",
        :mount_options => ['dmode=777','fmode=777']
    )

    # create the second disk and attach it
    config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
        unless File.exist?(disk)
            vb.customize ['createhd', '--filename', disk, '--variant', 'Fixed', '--size', 1 * 1024]
        end

        vb.customize ['storageattach', :id,  '--storagectl', 'SATA', '--port', 1, '--device', 0, '--type', 'hdd', '--medium', disk]
    end

    # NEW - invoke script which  partitions the new disk (/dev/sdb) 
    # and create mount directives in /etc/fstab
    #config.vm.provision :shell, path: "bootstrap.sh"  
    config.vm.provision "shell" do |shell|
        shell.inline = "sudo /vagrant/bootstrap.sh"  
    end
end

bootstap script:

#!/bin/bash  -x

#   configure and mount second disk 
#
yum install -y parted
parted /dev/sdb mklabel msdos
parted /dev/sdb mkpart primary 512 100%
mkfs.xfs /dev/sdb1
mkdir /mnt/disk
echo `blkid /dev/sdb1 | awk '{print$2}' | sed -e 's/"//g'` /mnt/disk   xfs   noatime,nobarrier   0   0 >> /etc/fstab
mount /mnt/disk
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