Why does this not work to configure node using nvm and yarn on remote VM?

Question

I am trying to automate VM configuration with a script and am having some trouble getting access to some path variables that get set in either ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, or ~/.profile.

My remote VM is running ubuntu 14.04 LTS and I am deploying over ssh.

This is the array that gets joined together to be run as a bash command to configure the vm by installing nvm:

return [ rm -rf ~/.nvm, sudo apt-get update, sudo apt-get install -y build-essential libssl-dev, curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.31.0/install.sh -o install_nvm.sh, bash install_nvm.sh, echo "source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh" >> ~/.bash_profile ].join('\n');

return [
      `rm -rf ~/.nvm`,
      `sudo apt-get update`,
      `sudo apt-get install -y build-essential libssl-dev`,
      `curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.31.0/install.sh -o install_nvm.sh`,
      `bash install_nvm.sh`,
      `echo "source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh" >> ~/.bash_profile`
    ].join('\n');

But when when I run the next script that actually installs node and yarn, it cannot find nvm:

return [
      `nvm install ${config.node.version}`,
      `nvm use ${config.node.version}`,
      `echo "using node $(node -v) and npm $(npm -v)"`,
      `curl -o- -L https://yarnpkg.com/install.sh | bash`,
      'echo "export PATH="$HOME/.yarn/bin:$PATH"" >> ~/.bash_profile',
    ].join('\n');

This is the error: bash: nvm: command not found

bash: line 1: nvm: command not found`

I don't want to ssh in and manually add anything to any of the various profiles. I'd like it all to be done by the script. I also want to avoid sourcing ~/.nvm/nvm.sh or sourcing any of the profiles when the ssh session begins. I was under the impression that an ssh session automatically sources ~/.bash_profile, which should then read from those variables correct? If not, then how else can I configure my deployment script to automatically have access to these variables?

Answer 1

Based on the fact that you are using && as you said in your comments I would add a line to actually source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh before running the nvm commands. You likely don't have the command available at the shell until that has been run.

Change this:

return [
      `rm -rf ~/.nvm`,
      `sudo apt-get update`,
      `sudo apt-get install -y build-essential libssl-dev`,
      `curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.31.0/install.sh -o install_nvm.sh`,
      `bash install_nvm.sh`,
      `echo "source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh" >> ~/.bash_profile`
    ].join('\n');

To this:

return [
      `rm -rf ~/.nvm`,
      `sudo apt-get update`,
      `sudo apt-get install -y build-essential libssl-dev`,
      `curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.31.0/install.sh -o install_nvm.sh`,
      `bash install_nvm.sh`,
      `echo "source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh" >> ~/.bash_profile`,
      `source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh`
    ].join('\n');