AlmaLinux Vagrant boxes have a new home: vagrant.almalinux.org

Key points

AlmaLinux now hosts its own Vagrant box catalog at vagrant.almalinux.org because HashiCorp is retiring the HCP Vagrant registry (formerly Vagrant Cloud), which has served the almalinux/* boxes since 2021. Box names do not change, but Vagrant has to be told to use the new server.

Timeline

• October 1, 2026: HCP stopped taking new boxes and new versions. AlmaLinux builds made after this date are only in the AlmaLinux catalog.
• November 2, 2026: HashiCorp support for HCP Vagrant ends.
• December 31, 2026: the registry shuts down. After that, vagrant box add almalinux/9 or vagrant up with config.vm.box = "almalinux/9" will fail unless Vagrant points at the AlmaLinux catalog.

How to use the catalog

• Set the VAGRANT_SERVER_URL environment variable to the catalog, then refer to boxes by name as before:

export VAGRANT_SERVER_URL=https://vagrant.almalinux.org
vagrant init almalinux/10
vagrant up

• To tie a project to the catalog regardless of environment, put config.vm.box_server_url = "https://vagrant.almalinux.org" in its Vagrantfile next to config.vm.box.
• If both are set, VAGRANT_SERVER_URL wins.
• The Vagrantfile setting is recommended for CI jobs that run sudo vagrant up, since sudo discards most environment variables.
• Vagrant gets metadata from the catalog, downloads box files from AlmaLinux's own storage and checks their SHA-256 checksums, the same way it worked with HCP.

Boxes already installed

• A box added from HCP keeps HCP as its update source even after VAGRANT_SERVER_URL is set.
• For such boxes, vagrant box outdated and vagrant box update report "up to date" even when the catalog has newer versions. Both commands will stop working entirely once HCP shuts down.
• To move a box to the catalog, add it again with the catalog configured, then remove the old versions:

export VAGRANT_SERVER_URL=https://vagrant.almalinux.org
vagrant box add almalinux/9 --provider libvirt
vagrant box prune --name almalinux/9

• Replace the box name and provider with your own. Providers are virtualbox, vmware_desktop, parallels, libvirt or hyperv.
• After re-adding, vagrant box update checks the catalog.
• Running VMs are unaffected and stay on the box they were created from.

Available boxes

• The catalog carries the same six boxes as HCP, with full version history from AlmaLinux OS 8.3 (February 2021) onward.
• almalinux/10, almalinux/9 and almalinux/10-kitten:
• x86_64: libvirt, VirtualBox, VMware, Hyper-V
• ARM64: VirtualBox, VMware, Parallels
• almalinux/10-x86_64_v2, almalinux/8 and almalinux/10-kitten-x86_64_v2: x86_64 only, with libvirt, VirtualBox, VMware and Hyper-V.
• Releases published only in the catalog include AlmaLinux OS 9.8 9.8.20261005, 10.2 10.2.20261012, Kitten 10.20261019.0 and 8.10 8.10.20261026.
• The new VirtualBox boxes for ARM64 hosts, such as Apple silicon Macs, are also only in the catalog.
• New releases are added automatically by the build pipeline once their tests pass.
• The catalog's web page lists every box, version, provider and architecture, with sizes and copyable usage instructions.

What to do

• Anyone maintaining Vagrantfiles, CI jobs or documentation that use almalinux/* boxes is asked to switch them to the catalog before December 31.
• AlmaLinux's own Vagrant-based CI is being migrated as well.
• Feedback and problem reports go to cloud-images issue #363, the ~sigcloud channel on chat.almalinux.org, or bugs.almalinux.org.

Summary by DistroNews, based on the original post.