vagrant-exec

Vagrant plugin to execute commands within the context of VM synced directory.

Description

You will probably use the plugin if you don't want to SSH into the box to execute commands simply because your machine environment is already configured (e.g. I use ZSH and TextMate bundles to run specs/features).

Example

➜ vagrant exec pwd
/vagrant

Installation

➜ vagrant plugin install vagrant-exec

Configuration

Custom root

The root directory can be configured using Vagrantfile.

Vagrant.configure('2') do |config|
  config.vm.box = 'precise32'
  config.exec.root = '/custom'
end

➜ vagrant exec pwd
# is the same as
➜ vagrant ssh -c "cd /custom && bundle exec pwd"

Prepend with

You can tell vagrant-exec to prepend all the commands with custom string.

Vagrant.configure('2') do |config|
  config.vm.box = 'precise32'
  config.exec.prepend_with 'bundle exec'
end

➜ vagrant exec pwd
# is the same as
➜ vagrant ssh -c "cd /vagrant && bundle exec pwd"

You can also limit prepend to specific commands and combine them.

Vagrant.configure('2') do |config|
  config.vm.box = 'precise32'
  config.exec.prepend_with 'bundle exec', :only => %w(rails rspec cucumber)
  config.exec.prepend_with 'rvmsudo', :only => %w(gem)
end

➜ vagrant exec rails c
# is the same as
➜ vagrant ssh -c "cd /vagrant && bundle exec rails c"

➜ vagrant exec gem install bundler
# is the same as
➜ vagrant ssh -c "cd /vagrant && rvmsudo gem install bundler"

Environment variables

You can add environment variables to be exported before.

Vagrant.configure('2') do |config|
  config.vm.box = 'precise32'
  config.exec.env['RAILS_ENV'] = 'test'
  config.exec.env['RAILS_ROOT'] = '/vagrant'
end

➜ vagrant exec pwd
# is the same as
➜ vagrant ssh -c "cd /vagrant && export RAILS_ENV=test && export RAILS_ROOT=/vagrant && pwd"

Acceptance tests

Before running features, you'll need to bootstrap box.

➜ bundle exec rake features:bootstrap

To run features, execute the following rake task.

➜ bundle exec rake features:run

After you're done, remove Vagrant box.

➜ bundle exec rake features:cleanup

Known issues

vagrant-exec cannot properly handle -v in command args (it's caught somewhere before plugin), so executing vagrant exec ruby -v will return Vagrant version rather than Ruby. As a workaround, wrap it in quotes: vagrant exec "ruby -v".

Note on Patches/Pull Requests

Fork the project.
Make your feature addition or bug fix.
Add tests for it. This is important so I don't break it in a future version unintentionally.
Commit, do not mess with rakefile, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but bump version in a commit by itself I can ignore when I pull)
Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.