SSH: Allow to specify path of remote wp-cli or full command

Describe your use case and the problem you are facing

The SSH feature is incredibly convenient as it allows my web agency to manage 40+ WordPress installation from a central point regardless of where they are hosted.

In particular, it is so useful being able to specify the path parameter for each site directly in the YAML config file.

However, our clients use different hosting providers; each remote machine has a different location for wp-cli, which is not always accessible through wp.
To make things worse, most of the times we do not even have sudo access.

I know there are ways to solve this problem, but AFAIK they require to alter something on the remote machine (docs) and they might not be that intuitive (see for example #5219).

Describe the solution you'd like

It would be so convenient to have a wp-cli-path option in config.yaml where the user can specify the location of the remote wp-cl installation:

@example:
    ssh: example.com
    path: /home/public_html/
    wp-cli-path: /home/bin/wp

An interesting extension would be to allow to specify a full command:

@example:
    ssh: example.com
    path: /home/public_html/
    wp-cli: php /home/wp-cli.phar

The main advantage of this approach is that the only action required on the remote machine would be to do the curl command to get wp-cli.phar.
In particular, there would be no need to mess with the $PATH or other environment variables, or with PHP files.

Would this feature be feasible?

Thank you,
Guido

Yes, I reviewed the contribution guidelines.

Why is it not possible for you to configure the machine once to set it up for WP-CLI? If you can curl the Phar file, you should also be able to rename it and point PATH to it as well for the SSH user...

Can you elaborate on what specific issues you're facing with this?

@schlessera

Hi @schlessera, thank you for your reply!

That's actually how we do it now :-)
For us, having the feature would just be a convenience matter: we prefer to have everything in a single file configuration shared amont the team (config.yaml) than having to mv + modify$PATH on each remote server.

In general, it makes sense not to force the user to use wp as the executable.
Maybe I have different versions of wp installed and depending on the case I might want to use a different one...

But I understand this is not something crucial, it's just a minor UX improvement... so no problem if you decide to close the issue.

Cheers,
Guido

I also think that this would be a great UX improvement if I could just type:

wp-cli: php wp-cli.phar

in my wp-cli.yml

👆 wp-cli: php wp-cli.phar may be the only possible way to get remote wp working on some webhosts like mine.

The official instruction Making WP-CLI accessible on a remote server lists 3 possibilities which all failed for me:

1) Copy WP-CLI binary to $HOME/bin

Fails for me as I cannot run shellscripts (=file with shebang plus execution flag) on my webhost at all.
So I can not execute the wpi-cli.phar file at all (also if renamed to "wp" and with execution flag) .
I have to invoke it as php ~/bin/wp.
I aliased wp to php $HOME/bin/wp in my .bashrc which I source in my .bash_profile.
That way I can use wp just fine when logged in via SSH in the interactive shell.
But running wp --ssh on my Mac to call the remote wp on the webhost, which runs in the non-interactive shell, the aliases don't seem to be defined in that non-interactive shell environment.
The path is not a problem, it get's through, which this test shows:

  $ ssh webuser@webuser-ssh.services.mywebhost.com -p 12345 "echo \$PATH"
  /data/web/webuser/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/games

2) Specify the $PATH in ~/.ssh/environment

On the webhost created my ~/.ssh/environment like this

# export PATH="$HOME/bin:${PATH}" # That won't help b/c the PATH is not the problem but that execution is forbidden.
alias wp="php $HOME/bin/wp"  # Trying to create an alias with the "php" invocation prefixed

Invoking from my Mac again fails:

$ wp theme list --ssh='webuser@webuser-ssh.services.mywebhost.com:12345/data/web/webuser/html/apps/mydomain-production/'
bash: /data/web/webuser/bin/wp: Permission denied

So the ~/.ssh/environment was obviously ignored, likely the sshd on the webhost has PermitUserEnvironment=no.
Because it actually again invoked wp via $PATH so as ~/bin/wp which is the phar, whose execution on that webhost seems forbidden.

3) Using the before_ssh hook (on the client machine, my MacBookPro)

/usr/local/bin/wp — Was installed via brew.
~/.wp-cli/config.yml

ssh: webuser@webuser-ssh.services.mywebhost.com:12345
path: /data/web/webuser/html/apps/mydomain-production/
require:
  - pre-ssh.php

~/.wp-cli/pre-ssh.php

WP_CLI::add_hook( 'before_ssh', function() {

    $host = WP_CLI\Utils\parse_ssh_url(
        WP_CLI::get_runner()->config['ssh'],
        PHP_URL_HOST
    );

    switch( $host ) {
        case 'example.com':
            <!-- Executing the wp-cli-phar file seems to be forbidden hence I decativate this -->
            <!-- putenv( 'WP_CLI_SSH_PRE_CMD=export PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH' ); -->
            
            <!-- Alternatively attempt: Set alias in remote environment -->
            putenv( 'WP_CLI_SSH_PRE_CMD=alias wp="php $HOME/bin/wp"' );
            break;
    }
} );

When calling wp now in it's short form (as the parameters are in the config.yml) it first echoes the contents of pre-ssh.php except the last line } ); and then comes the password entry which works, and then again fails with permission denied. Btw, that echoing of the PHP part always happens, also if I remove the comment lines and have only a single line between the case line and break line.

$ wp theme list
wp theme list
WP_CLI::add_hook( 'before_ssh', function() {

    $host = WP_CLI\Utils\parse_ssh_url(
        WP_CLI::get_runner()->config['ssh'],
        PHP_URL_HOST
    );

    switch( $host ) {
        case 'example.com':
            <!-- Executing the wp-cli-phar file seems to be forbidden hence I decativate this -->
            <!-- putenv( 'WP_CLI_SSH_PRE_CMD=export PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH' ); -->
            
            <!-- Alternatively attempt: Set alias in remote environment -->
            putenv( 'WP_CLI_SSH_PRE_CMD=alias wp="php $HOME/bin/wp"' );
            break;
    }
webuser@webuser-ssh.services.mywebhost.com's password: # Password entry works fine.
bash: /data/web/webuser/bin/wp: Permission denied

Did I get anything wrong?

Or is wp-cli: php wp-cli.phar the only possibility to get remote wp running on a webhost configured like mine?

Yes!

After 1.5 days of research and trial'n'error and tears and sweat, I finally found a 4th method which also works on the most restrictive webhost! I integrated this to the manual and created this pull request:
Running commands remotely: On restrictive webhost handbook#425
Hope this manual addition will help those who arrive to this issue here and similar/related issues:
Nevertheless I also vote +1 for this issue here, b/c if you could simply specify wp-cli: php wp-cli.phar it would spare you to jump through all the hoops outlined in the comment above.
The odyssey outlined in the comment above is a true testimonial that this feature would simplify the situation with tricky/restrictive webhost configurations a lot!

@porg

Thank you for pointing out this ~/.bashrc trick, @porg 💪

I agree that wp-cli: php /home/wp-cli.phar would be more convenient, but at least now we have a workaround that works without sudo privileges.

@schlessera

@schlessera @danielbachhuber do you consider this feature?

@coccoinomane

@coccoinomane could you maybe adapt your issue title to include the command prefix possibility:

SSH: Allow to specify path of remote wp-cli plus command prefix

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SSH: Allow to specify path of remote wp-cli or full command #5245

1) Copy WP-CLI binary to $HOME/bin

2) Specify the $PATH in ~/.ssh/environment

3) Using the before_ssh hook (on the client machine, my MacBookPro)

Did I get anything wrong?

Yes!

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SSH: Allow to specify path of remote wp-cli or full command #5245

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schlessera commented on Jun 25, 2019

coccoinomane commented on Jun 25, 2019

endriu84 commented on Apr 28, 2020

porg commented on Dec 13, 2022

1) Copy WP-CLI binary to $HOME/bin

2) Specify the $PATH in ~/.ssh/environment

3) Using the before_ssh hook (on the client machine, my MacBookPro)

Did I get anything wrong?

porg commented on Dec 13, 2022

Yes!

coccoinomane commented on Dec 14, 2022

porg commented on Dec 14, 2022

porg commented on Dec 14, 2022

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