How to run commands without starting shell

[jby]

Is there a way to send commands to tmux without having to start the shell and sending the command there?

In my old script (used before finding tmuxifier) I have:

tmux new-window -d -n "host" "ssh host"

which makes tmux name the window after the remote host and execute ssh directly, without first executing my login shell.

How do I achieve the same result from a tmuxifier config?

[jimeh]

Tmuxifier doesn't currently allow passing custom arguments to the new-window command: https://github.com/jimeh/tmuxifier/blob/master/lib/layout-helpers.sh#L20-L27

I am planning to add support for it though, just haven't gotten there yet. In the meantime what you can do is instead of calling the new_window helper in your window/session layout file, call this:

tmuxifier-tmux new-window -t "$session:" -d -n "host" "ssh host"

[jby]

Thanks 👍

[jby]

Is it pure sh syntax? Could I write a sh for loop and cycle through?

[jimeh]

Yepp, the layouts files are just pure bash scripts with some helper functions made available by Tmuxifier :)

[jimeh]

The layout files are literally just sourced with source in the middle of some variable/environment setup for the specific layout file: https://github.com/jimeh/tmuxifier/blob/master/lib/layout-helpers.sh#L167

[jby]

Great, thanks again!

[jby]

Hmm interesting.

If I use this at the end of my window-file:

tmuxifier-tmux new-window -t "$session:" -d -n "host1" "ssh host1"
tmuxifier-tmux new-window -t "$session:" -d -n "host2" "ssh host2"
tmuxifier-tmux new-window -t "$session:" -d -n "host3" "ssh host3"
tmuxifier-tmux new-window -t "$session:" -d -n "host4" "ssh host4"
tmuxifier-tmux new-window -t "$session:" -d -n "host5" "ssh host5"
tmuxifier-tmux new-window -t "$session:" -d -n "host6" "ssh host6"
tmuxifier-tmux new-window -t "$session:" -d -n "host7" "ssh host7"
tmuxifier-tmux new-window -t "$session:" -d -n "host8" "ssh host8"
tmuxifier-tmux new-window -t "$session:" -d -n "host9" "ssh host9"

I get what I expect - the nine windows, each ssh:ed into it's respective host.

However, if I instead use a loop:

for f in host1 host2 host3 host4 host5 host6 host7 host8 host9
do
    tmuxifier-tmux new-window -t "$session:" -d -n "${f}" "ssh ${f}"
done

I get this:

create window failed: index in use: 1

and it seems that it creates the session and the first window (localhost), defined by the default

new_window "[window name]"

earlier in the file

Could you perhaps shed som light on this? Is it a timing issue? The loop is too quick?

[jby]

Hmm, tested to rename the session to have a different name than the window-layout - no more error...

[jby]

Apparently it's not enough with a different name - it needs a dash '-' in the name to not give the error.

Strange.

[jimeh]

I think it could be due to $session not be correctly set. In theory it should be regardless of what you're doing, but you could try this:

tmuxifier-tmux new-window -t "${session-$(tmuxifier current-session)}:" -d -n "host1" "ssh host1"

Basically if $session is not set, get the current session name from Tmuxifier.

[jby]

👍

Thanks, that did the trick!