https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout

mixin library for subprocess management, output collection
https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout

Keywords from Contributors

chef configuration-management discovery ohai cfgmgt deployment rubygems rack background-jobs sidekiq

Last synced: about 17 hours ago
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Repository metadata

mixin library for subprocess management, output collection

Host: GitHub
URL: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout
Owner: chef
License: apache-2.0
Created: 2011-12-01T19:55:41.000Z (over 14 years ago)
Default Branch: main
Last Pushed: 2026-04-17T16:39:58.000Z (about 1 month ago)
Last Synced: 2026-05-13T00:06:26.551Z (11 days ago)
Language: Ruby
Homepage:
Size: 1.11 MB
Stars: 133
Watchers: 61
Forks: 73
Open Issues: 12
Releases: 0
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- Changelog: CHANGELOG.md
- Contributing: CONTRIBUTING.md
- License: LICENSE
- Code of conduct: CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
- Codeowners: .github/CODEOWNERS

Mixlib::ShellOut

Provides a simplified interface to shelling out while still collecting both standard out and standard error and providing full control over environment, working directory, uid, gid, etc.

Example

Simple Shellout

Invoke find(1) to search for .rb files:

  require 'mixlib/shellout'
  find = Mixlib::ShellOut.new("find . -name '*.rb'")
  find.run_command

If all went well, the results are on stdout

  puts find.stdout

find(1) prints diagnostic info to STDERR:

  puts "error messages" + find.stderr

Raise an exception if it didn't exit with 0

  find.error!

Advanced Shellout

In addition to the command to run there are other options that can be set to change the shellout behavior. The complete list of options can be found here: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout/blob/master/lib/mixlib/shellout.rb

Run a command as the www user with no extra ENV settings from /tmp with a 1s timeout

  cmd = Mixlib::ShellOut.new("apachectl", "start", :user => 'www', :environment => nil, :cwd => '/tmp', :timeout => 1)
  cmd.run_command # etc.

STDIN Example

Invoke crontab to edit user cron:

  # :input only supports simple strings
  crontab_lines = [ "* * * * * /bin/true", "* * * * * touch /tmp/here" ]
  crontab = Mixlib::ShellOut.new("crontab -l -u #{@new_resource.user}", :input => crontab_lines.join("\n"))
  crontab.run_command

Windows Impersonation Example

Invoke "whoami.exe" to demonstrate running a command as another user:

  whoami = Mixlib::ShellOut.new("whoami.exe", :user => "username", :domain => "DOMAIN", :password => "password")
  whoami.run_command

Invoke "whoami.exe" with elevated privileges:

  whoami = Mixlib::ShellOut.new("whoami.exe", :user => "username", :domain => "DOMAIN", :password => "password", :elevated => true)
  whoami.run_command

NOTE: The user 'admin' must have the 'Log on as a batch job' permission and the user chef is running as must have the 'Replace a process level token' and 'Adjust Memory Quotas for a process' permissions.

Platform Support

Mixlib::ShellOut does a standard fork/exec on Unix, and uses the Win32 API on Windows. There is not currently support for JRuby.

Contributing

For information on contributing to this project see https://github.com/chef/chef/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

License

Copyright:: Copyright (c) 2011-2016 Chef Software, Inc.
License:: Apache License, Version 2.0

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.

Owner metadata

Name: Progress Chef
Login: chef
Email: ops@chef.io
Kind: organization
Description:
Website: https://www.chef.io/
Location: United States of America
Twitter: chef
Company:
Icon url: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/29740?v=4
Repositories: 245
Last ynced at: 2023-04-10T00:51:04.360Z
Profile URL: https://github.com/chef

GitHub Events

Total

Delete event: 2
Member event: 1
Pull request event: 32
Fork event: 4
Issues event: 1
Watch event: 5
Issue comment event: 68
Push event: 66
Pull request review comment event: 10
Pull request review event: 45
Create event: 25

Last Year

Pull request event: 6
Watch event: 1
Issue comment event: 7
Push event: 16
Pull request review comment event: 1
Pull request review event: 9
Create event: 6

Committers metadata

Last synced: 1 day ago

Total Commits: 578
Total Committers: 66
Avg Commits per committer: 8.758
Development Distribution Score (DDS): 0.849

Commits in past year: 17
Committers in past year: 7
Avg Commits per committer in past year: 2.429
Development Distribution Score (DDS) in past year: 0.529

Name	Email	Commits
Chef Expeditor	c**i@c**o	87
Ho-Sheng Hsiao	h**o@g**m	81
Tim Smith	t**h@c**o	77
Lamont Granquist	l**t@s**g	45
Daniel DeLeo	d**n@o**m	42
sersut	s**r@o**m	21
Matt Wrock	m**t@m**m	19
Moser, Kevin	K**r@n**m	18
Jay Mundrawala	j**a@g**m	15
rishichawda	r****a	14
Thomas Heinen	t**n@g**m	11
Bryan McLellan	b**m@l**g	10
Seth Chisamore	s**o@o**m	9
Imanol-Mikel Barba Sabariego	i**l@i**t	9
Kartik Null Cating-Subramanian	k**n@c**o	7
kaustubh-d	k**h@c**m	7
adamedx	a**d@o**m	7
Kapil Chouhan	k**n@m**m	6
John McCrae	j**e@p**m	5
Thom May	t**m@c**o	5
dcrosby	d**y@m**m	5
Chef Expeditor	e**r@c**o	5
Ryan Cragun	me@r****c	4
John McCrae	j**e@c**o	4
Akshay Karle	a**e@g**m	3
Steven Murawski	s**i@g**m	3
Nitz	n**z@g**m	3
Brian Warsing	b**g@v**m	2
Julian C. Dunn	j**n@g**m	2
Julian C. Dunn	j**n@o**m	2
and 36 more...

Committer domains:

Issue and Pull Request metadata

Last synced: 13 days ago

Total issues: 27
Total pull requests: 135
Average time to close issues: about 1 year
Average time to close pull requests: about 2 months
Total issue authors: 21
Total pull request authors: 33
Average comments per issue: 1.3
Average comments per pull request: 1.2
Merged pull request: 107
Bot issues: 4
Bot pull requests: 0

Past year issues: 1
Past year pull requests: 16
Past year average time to close issues: N/A
Past year average time to close pull requests: 24 days
Past year issue authors: 1
Past year pull request authors: 6
Past year average comments per issue: 0.0
Past year average comments per pull request: 1.19
Past year merged pull request: 13
Past year bot issues: 0
Past year bot pull requests: 0

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Top Issue Authors

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Type: Bug (10)
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Top Pull Request Labels

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Package metadata

Total packages: 12
Total downloads:
- rubygems: 182,324,254 total
Total docker downloads: 926,365,160
Total dependent packages: 148 (may contain duplicates)
Total dependent repositories: 9,837 (may contain duplicates)
Total versions: 307
Total maintainers: 5

gem.coop: mixlib-shellout

Run external commands on Unix or Windows

Homepage: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout
Documentation: http://www.rubydoc.info/gems/mixlib-shellout/
Licenses: Apache-2.0
Latest release: 3.4.10 (published 4 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-05-22T05:27:56.738Z (1 day ago)
Versions: 116
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Downloads: 91,160,172 Total
Docker Downloads: 463,182,580
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 0.131%
- Docker downloads count: 0.23%
- Downloads: 0.296%
Maintainers (5)
- 43081
- chef
- hayfever76
- nehap
- stringsn88keys

rubygems.org: mixlib-shellout

Run external commands on Unix or Windows

Homepage: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout
Documentation: http://www.rubydoc.info/gems/mixlib-shellout/
Licenses: Apache-2.0
Latest release: 3.4.10 (published 4 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-05-22T09:30:47.444Z (1 day ago)
Versions: 116
Dependent Packages: 148
Dependent Repositories: 9,837
Downloads: 91,164,082 Total
Docker Downloads: 463,182,580
Rankings:
- Dependent packages count: 0.232%
- Docker downloads count: 0.283%
- Dependent repos count: 0.336%
- Downloads: 0.344%
- Average: 1.512%
- Forks count: 3.048%
- Stargazers count: 4.827%
Maintainers (5)
- nehap
- hayfever76
- 43081
- chef
- stringsn88keys

proxy.golang.org: github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout

Homepage:
Documentation: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout#section-documentation
Licenses: apache-2.0
Latest release: v3.4.10+incompatible (published 5 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-05-22T05:27:56.097Z (1 day ago)
Versions: 66
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Forks count: 2.935%
- Stargazers count: 4.193%
- Average: 6.877%
- Dependent packages count: 9.576%
- Dependent repos count: 10.802%

ubuntu-20.04: ruby-mixlib-shellout

Homepage: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout
Licenses:
Latest release: 3.0.9-2 (published 3 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-03-13T14:23:59.812Z (2 months ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

ubuntu-23.04: ruby-mixlib-shellout

Homepage: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout
Licenses:
Latest release: 3.2.5-2 (published 3 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-03-11T18:35:27.175Z (2 months ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

ubuntu-23.10: ruby-mixlib-shellout

Homepage: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout
Licenses:
Latest release: 3.2.5-2 (published 3 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-03-14T03:15:06.376Z (2 months ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

ubuntu-24.10: ruby-mixlib-shellout

Homepage: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout
Licenses:
Latest release: 3.2.5-2 (published 3 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-03-09T17:07:39.433Z (3 months ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

debian-11: ruby-mixlib-shellout

Homepage: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout
Documentation: https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/ruby-mixlib-shellout
Licenses:
Latest release: 3.0.9-2 (published 3 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-03-14T07:16:30.196Z (2 months ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

ubuntu-22.04: ruby-mixlib-shellout

Homepage: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout
Licenses:
Latest release: 3.2.5-2 (published 3 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-03-13T22:39:02.653Z (2 months ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

debian-12: ruby-mixlib-shellout

Homepage: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout
Documentation: https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/ruby-mixlib-shellout
Licenses:
Latest release: 3.2.5-2 (published 3 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-03-13T23:45:10.525Z (2 months ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
- Dependent repos count: 0.0%
- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

ubuntu-24.04: ruby-mixlib-shellout

Homepage: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout
Licenses:
Latest release: 3.2.5-2 (published 4 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-03-06T16:49:19.223Z (3 months ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
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- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

debian-13: ruby-mixlib-shellout

Homepage: https://github.com/chef/mixlib-shellout
Documentation: https://packages.debian.org/trixie/ruby-mixlib-shellout
Licenses:
Latest release: 3.2.5-2 (published 3 months ago)
Last Synced: 2026-03-14T18:10:35.041Z (2 months ago)
Versions: 1
Dependent Packages: 0
Dependent Repositories: 0
Rankings:
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- Dependent packages count: 0.0%
- Average: 100%

Dependencies

Gemfile rubygems

chefstyle = 1.6.2 development
pry >= 0 development
pry-byebug >= 0 development
rake >= 0 development
rb-readline >= 0 development
rspec ~> 3.0 development
chef-utils < 16.7.23
ffi-win32-extensions ~> 1.0.4
win32-process ~> 0.9
wmi-lite ~> 1.0.7

mixlib-shellout-universal-mingw-ucrt.gemspec rubygems

ffi-win32-extensions ~> 1.0.3
win32-process ~> 0.9
wmi-lite ~> 1.0

mixlib-shellout-universal-mingw32.gemspec rubygems

ffi-win32-extensions ~> 1.0.3
win32-process ~> 0.9
wmi-lite ~> 1.0

mixlib-shellout.gemspec rubygems

chef-utils >= 0

Score: 29.992842538718754