Updating .bashrc and environment variables during Vagrant provisioning

Question

I'm using Vagrant to set up a box with python, pip, virtualenv, virtualenvwrapper and some requirements. A provisioning shell script adds the required lines for virtualenvwrapper to .bashrc. It does a very basic check that they're not already there, so that it doesn't duplicate them with every provision:

if ! grep -Fq "WORKON_HOME" /home/vagrant/.bashrc; then
    echo 'export WORKON_HOME=/home/vagrant/.virtualenvs' >> /home/vagrant/.bashrc
    echo 'export PROJECT_HOME=/home/vagrant/Devel' >> /home/vagrant/.bashrc
    echo 'source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh' >> /home/vagrant/.bashrc

    source /home/vagrant/.bashrc
fi

That seems to work fine; after provisioning is finished, the lines are in .bashrc, and I can ssh to the box and use virtualenvwrapper.

However, virtualenvwrapper doesn't work during provisioning. After the section above, this next checks for a pip requirements file and tries to install with virtualenvwrapper:

if [[ -f /vagrant/requirements.txt ]]; then
    mkvirtualenv 'myvirtualenv' -r /vagrant/requirements.txt
fi

But that generates:

==> default: /tmp/vagrant-shell: line 50: mkvirtualenv: command not found

If I try and echo $WORKON_HOME from that shell script, nothing appears.

What am I missing to have those environment variables available, so virtualenvwrapper will run?

UPDATE: Further attempts... it seems that doing source /home/vagrant/.bashrc has no effect in my shell script - I can put echo "hello" in the .bashrc file , and that isn't output during provisioning (but is if I run source /home/vagrant/.bashrc when logged in.

I've also tried su -c "source /home/vagrant/.bashrc" vagrant in the shell script but that is no different.

UPDATE 2: Removed the $BASHRC_PATH variable, which was confusing the issue.

UPDATE 3: In another question I got the answer as to why source /home/vagrant/.bashrc wasn't working: the first part of the .bashrc file prevented it from doing anything when run "not interactively" in that way.

Sprat

I'm not sure why this has been downvoted… what have I done wrong? – Sprat

Answer 1

The Vagrant script provisioner will run as root, so it's home dir (~) will be /root. In your script if you define BASHRC_PATH=/home/vagrant, then I believe your steps will work: appending to, then sourcing from /home/vagrant/.bashrc.

Update:

Scratching my earlier idea ^^ because BASHRC_PATH is already set correctly.

As an alternative we could use .profile or .bash_profile. Here's a simplified example which sets environment variable FOO, making it available during provisioning and after ssh login:

Vagrantfile

Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|
  config.vm.box = "hashicorp/precise32"

  $prov_script = <<SCRIPT
if ! grep -q "export FOO" /home/vagrant/.profile; then
  sudo echo "export FOO=bar" >> /home/vagrant/.profile
  echo "before source, FOO=$FOO"
  source /home/vagrant/.profile
  echo "after source, FOO=$FOO"
fi
SCRIPT

  config.vm.provision "shell", inline: $prov_script
end

Results

$ vagrant up
...
==> default: Running provisioner: shell...
    default: Running: inline script
==> default: before source, FOO=
==> default: after source, FOO=bar
$ vagrant ssh -c 'echo $FOO'
bar
$ vagrant ssh -c 'tail -n 1 ~/.profile'
export FOO=bar

Baccivorous

I should have said what I'd set BASHRC_PATH to... it was already set to /home/vagrant, so that's not it, but thanks! – Sprat

I've added that in now, so the question makes a bit more sense. – Sprat

And now I've removed it entirely as it distracts from the issue! – Sprat

@PhilGyford I updated my answer with another approach using .profile, avoiding the issues around whether .bashrc is ready. – Baccivorous

Answer 2

I found a solution, but I don't know if it's the best. It feels slightly wrong as it's repeating things, but...

I still append those lines to .bashrc, so that virtualenvwrapper will work if I ssh into the machine. But, because source /home/vagrant/.bashrc appears to have no effect during the running of the script, I have to explicitly repeat those three commands:

if ! grep -Fq "WORKON_HOME" $BASHRC_PATH; then
    echo 'export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs' >> $BASHRC_PATH
    echo 'export PROJECT_HOME=$HOME/Devel' >> $BASHRC_PATH
    echo 'source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh' >> $BASHRC_PATH
fi

WORKON_HOME=/home/vagrant/.virtualenvs
PROJECT_HOME=/home/vagrant/Devel
source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

(As an aside, I also realised that during vagrant provisioning $HOME is /root, not the /home/vagrant I was assuming.)

Sprat

Answer 3

The .bashrc in Ubuntu box does not work. You have to create the .bash_profile and add:

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
  . ~/.bashrc
fi

Newburg

Answer 4

As mentioned in your other Q, Vagrant prohibits interactive shells during provisioning - apparently, only for some boxes (need to reference this though). For me, this affects the official Ubuntu Trusty and Xenial boxes.

However, you can simulate an interactive bash shell using sudo -H -u USER_HERE bash -i -c 'YOUR COMMAND HERE'

Answer taken from: https://mcmap.net/q/243276/-vagrant-virtualbox-vm-provisioning-rbenv-installs-successfully-but-subsequent-uses-in-script-fail

This has worked for me installing Ruby via rbenv and Node via nvm when provisioning the Ubuntu/trusty64 and xenial64 boxes.

Mcinerney