CLI Machines Exec

`ed machines exec`

Runs a command on a machine, passing stdin, stdout, stderr and the remote exit code straight through. run is an accepted alias.

ed machines exec [--tty] <machine> [--] <command...>

Arguments

Name	Type / values	Default	What it does
`<machine>`	string, required	none	Machine name, ssh alias, id or unambiguous prefix.
`<command...>`	words, required in practice	empty	The command to run. Everything after the machine name is captured verbatim, flags included. A leading `--` is stripped.

Options

Name	Type / values	Default	What it does
`--tty`, `-t`	flag	off	Run it on a terminal, so `vim`, `top`, a `sudo` password prompt and `docker exec -it` work.
`--help`, `-h`	flag	off	Print the help for this command on stdout and exit 0.

There is no --json here. The output is the remote command's output and nothing else.

Examples

ed machines exec tuf -- uptime
ed tuf uptime
ed machines exec --tty tuf -- top
ed tuf 'ls -la /srv | head'

Behaviour notes

This is the one command on the page whose exit code is not Edith's. The remote process's status becomes yours, so a grep that matched nothing exits 1 and a missing command exits 127, neither of which means ed failed. The --tty path returns ssh's own status the same way.

Arguments are quoted individually before they are sent, so an argument containing spaces survives. Shell metacharacters do not: to use a pipe, a redirection or a glob on the machine, quote the whole line as in the last example. A single-word command is sent verbatim, unquoted.

cd is special when it is the whole command: ed tuf cd Desktop records a working directory for that terminal rather than running anything, and later commands are prefixed with it. cd - goes back, cd with no argument goes home, and a path that does not exist exits 1 with the machine's own error and leaves the current directory alone. The full model, including how the directory is scoped to one terminal and how remote completion follows it, is on running commands on a machine.

Naming no command at all exits 1:

$ ed machines exec tuf
error: name a command to run, for example `ed tuf uptime`

An unknown machine exits 3, an unreachable one exits 4.

Subcommands documented elsewhere

Between exec and connect, ed machines declares seven more subcommands. They are part of this group and resolve machines the same way, but they are documented elsewhere:

ed machines files ...        browsing, transfers, the Finder operations and undo
ed machines docker ...       containers, images, volumes, networks, compose
ed machines services ...     systemd units: list, start, stop, restart
ed machines power ...        status, reboot, shutdown, wake-on-LAN
ed machines kill ...         end a process by pid
ed machines broadcast ...    one command on every configured machine
ed machines workspace ...    the saved multi-pane layouts