Vagrant/VirtualBox VM provisioning: rbenv installs successfully but subsequent uses in script fail

I had a similar problem because I was trying to install rbenv and the vagrant provisioning was giving me the error:

==> default: /tmp/vagrant-shell: line 10: rbenv: command not found

First of all, it is very important to understand that vagrant provisioning script is running in sudo mode.So, when in the script we refer to ~/ path, we are referring to /root/ path and not to /home/vagrant/ path.The problem is that I was installing rbenv for the root user and after trying to call rbenv command from a vagrant user and, of course, it didn't work!

So, what I did is specify the vagrant to run the provisioner NOT in sudo user, adding privileged: false:

config.vm.provision :shell, privileged: false, inline: $script

Then in my script I considered everything as being called from the vagrant user.Here @Casper answer helped me a lot, because it works only specifying:sudo -H -u vagrant bash -i -c '......'

Since you just updated .bashrc with a new path and other settings, you will want to run "sudo bash" with the -i option. This will force bash to simulate an interactive login shell, and therefore read .bashrc and load the correct path for rbenv.

Below is my final Vagrantfile.

# -*- mode: ruby -*-# vi: set ft=ruby :$script = <<SCRIPT  sudo apt-get -y update  sudo apt-get -y install curl git-core python-software-properties ruby-dev libpq-dev build-essential nginx libsqlite3-0 libsqlite3-dev libxml2 libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev nodejs postgresql postgresql-contrib imagemagick  git clone https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv  echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc  echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"'               >> ~/.bashrc  source ~/.bashrc  git clone https://github.com/sstephenson/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build  sudo -H -u vagrant bash -i -c 'rbenv install 2.1.3'  sudo -H -u vagrant bash -i -c 'rbenv rehash'  sudo -H -u vagrant bash -i -c 'rbenv global 2.1.3'  sudo -H -u vagrant bash -i -c 'gem install bundler --no-ri --no-rdoc'  sudo -H -u vagrant bash -i -c 'rbenv rehash'  sudo -u postgres createdb --locale en_US.utf8 --encoding UTF8 --template template0 development  echo "ALTER USER postgres WITH PASSWORD \'develop\';" | sudo -u postgres psqlSCRIPTVAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = "2"Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|  config.vm.box = "hashicorp/precise64"  config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 3000, host: 3000  # config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |vb|  #   vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--memory", "1024"]  # end  config.vm.provision :shell, privileged: false, inline: $scriptend

Hope it will be helpful to someone else.

I'm surprised the provisioning script exits, as running su vagrant should in theory hang the script at that point (you're running the command su which does not normally exit by itself).

The problem is you cannot change the user that is running a shell script "on the fly" by running su.
Your only option is to use sudo.

Since you just updated .bashrc with a new path and other settings, you will want to run "sudo bash" with the -i option. This will force bash to simulate an interactive login shell, and therefore read .bashrc and load the correct path for rbenv.

So, something like this should hopefully work:

echo "building ruby"sudo -H -u vagrant bash -i -c 'rbenv install 2.2.1 ...'

There another Solution to install rbenv within Vagrant Provisioning process different than both @Casper and @Diego D solutions.

Using Next Commands before using rbenv commands

export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build/bin:$PATH"eval "$(rbenv init -)"

Then run rbenv install commands without sudo -H -u vagrant bash -i -c

Bootstrap.sh File

#!/usr/bin/env bashsudo apt-get updateecho "========================= install dependencies for install rbenv ==========================="sudo apt-get install -y autoconf bison build-essential libssl-dev libyaml-dev libreadline6-dev zlib1g-dev libncurses5-dev libffi-dev libgdbm3 libgdbm-devecho "========================= install rbenv =========================================="git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenvecho 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >>  ~/.bashrcecho 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >>  ~/.bashrcecho "========================= install ruby build plugin for rbenv ======================="git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git  ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-buildecho 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrcecho "========================= install ruby v2.5.0 =========================================="export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build/bin:$PATH"eval "$(rbenv init -)"rbenv install 2.5.0rbenv global 2.5.0ruby -vgem -vecho "========================= install bundler dependencies manager for ruby ====================="gem install bundlerrbenv rehash

Then VagrantFile file will include vagrant provisioning line

deploy_config.vm.provision :shell, privileged: false, path: "bootstrap.sh"

Source for my Answer from Gits by @creisor