hashicorp/vagrant · warning

Destroying guests with `--parallel` automatically enables `-

Error message

Destroying guests with `--parallel` automatically enables `--force`.
Press ctrl-c to cancel.

What it means

When `vagrant destroy` runs with --parallel but without --force, Vagrant warns that parallel destroy automatically enables force mode (per-machine confirmations are skipped), sleeps 5 seconds so you can press ctrl-c, sets options[:force] = true, then destroys every targeted machine concurrently via env.batch.

Source

Thrown at plugins/commands/destroy/command.rb:41

            options[:force] = f
          end

          o.on("--[no-]parallel",
               "Enable or disable parallelism if provider supports it (automatically enables force)") do |p|
            options[:parallel] = p
          end

          o.on("-g", "--graceful", "Gracefully poweroff of VM") do |f|
            options[:force_halt] = false
          end
        end

        # Parse the options
        argv = parse_options(opts)
        return if !argv

        if options[:parallel] && !options[:force]
          @env.ui.warn(I18n.t("vagrant.commands.destroy.warning"))
          sleep(5)
          options[:force] = true
        end

        @logger.debug("'Destroy' each target VM...")

        machines = []
        init_states = {}
        declined = 0

        @env.batch(options[:parallel]) do |batch|
          with_target_vms(argv, reverse: true) do |vm|
            # gather states to be checked after destroy
            init_states[vm.name] = vm.state.id
            machines << vm
            batch.action(vm, :destroy, force_confirm_destroy: options[:force], force_halt: options[:force_halt])
          end
        end

View on GitHub (pinned to 35f3160f4a)

Solutions

1. Press ctrl-c within the 5-second window if the destroy is unintended
2. Re-run without --parallel to get per-machine confirmation prompts
3. Scope the destroy to named machines: `vagrant destroy --parallel web db`
4. Pass --force explicitly in automation to skip both the warning and the 5-second wait

Example fix

# before
vagrant destroy --parallel        # implies --force for ALL machines
# after
vagrant destroy --parallel web      # only the named machine

# Wrapper guard: refuse --parallel destroy unless machine names are given
if [[ "$*" == *--parallel* && "$#" -le 1 ]]; then
  echo "refusing: --parallel destroy of ALL machines; name machines explicitly" >&2
  exit 1
fi

When it happens

Trigger: `vagrant destroy --parallel` (no -f/--force) in any environment; the warning prints, sleep(5) runs, and then with_target_vms iterates all machines in reverse order with no further prompts.

Common situations: Multi-machine Vagrantfiles where the operator expected selective per-VM prompts; automation unaware that --parallel implies --force; accidental destruction of the whole environment.

Related errors

• An error occurred while executing multiple actions in parall
• This Vagrant environment has specified that it requires the
• A URL to a Vagrant Cloud server is not set, so boxes cannot
• The box '%{name}' could not be found or could not be accesse
• There was an error while downloading the metadata for this b

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/vagrant@35f3160f4a (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b6a30d0d1ab51f6b. Report an issue: GitHub.