remote-exec Provisioner

The remote-exec provisioner invokes a script on a remote resource after it is created. This can be used to run a configuration management tool, bootstrap into a cluster, etc. To invoke a local process, see the local-exec provisioner instead. The remote-exec provisioner requires a connection and supports both ssh and winrm.

Important: Use provisioners as a last resort. There are better alternatives for most situations. Refer to Declaring Provisioners for more details.

Example usage

resource "aws_instance" "web" {
  # ...

  # Establishes connection to be used by all
  # generic remote provisioners (i.e. file/remote-exec)
  connection {
    type     = "ssh"
    user     = "root"
    password = var.root_password
    host     = self.public_ip
  }

  provisioner "remote-exec" {
    inline = [
      "puppet apply",
      "consul join ${aws_instance.web.private_ip}",
    ]
  }
}

Argument Reference

The following arguments are supported:

inline - This is a list of command strings. The provisioner uses a default shell unless you specify a shell as the first command (eg., #!/bin/bash). You cannot provide this with script or scripts.
script - This is a path (relative or absolute) to a local script that will be copied to the remote resource and then executed. This cannot be provided with inline or scripts.
scripts - This is a list of paths (relative or absolute) to local scripts that will be copied to the remote resource and then executed. They are executed in the order they are provided. This cannot be provided with inline or script.

Note: Since inline is implemented by concatenating commands into a script, on_failure applies only to the final command in the list. In particular, with on_failure = fail (the default behaviour) earlier commands will be allowed to fail, and later commands will also execute. If this behaviour is not desired, consider using "set -o errexit" as the first command.

Script Arguments

You cannot pass any arguments to scripts using the script or scripts arguments to this provisioner. If you want to specify arguments, upload the script with the file provisioner and then use inline to call it. Example:

resource "aws_instance" "web" {
  # ...

  provisioner "file" {
    source      = "script.sh"
    destination = "/tmp/script.sh"
  }

  provisioner "remote-exec" {
    inline = [
      "chmod +x /tmp/script.sh",
      "/tmp/script.sh args",
    ]
  }
}