How can I properly set the `env.hosts` in a function in my Python Fabric `fabfile.py`?

@Chris, the reason you're seeing this behavior is because the host list is constructed before the task function is called. So, even though you're changing env.hosts inside the function, it is too late for it to have any effect.

Whereas the command fab setenv:foo mycmd:bar, would have resulted in something you would have expected:

$ fab setenv:foo mycmd:bar
[myhost] Executing task 'mycmd'
['myhost']
[myhost] run: ls

This is the same as the accepted answer, but because of the way setenv is defined, an argument is needed.

Another example:

from fabric.api import env, run, local, cd

env.hosts = ['other_host']

def setenv(foo):
    env.hosts = ['myhost']

def mycmd(foo):
    setenv(foo)
    print('env.hosts inside mycmd: %s' % env.hosts)
    run('ls')

The output of this is:

$ fab mycmd:bar
[other_host] Executing task 'mycmd'
env.hosts inside mycmd: ['myhost']
[other_host] run: ls

Fatal error: Name lookup failed for other_host

Underlying exception:
    (8, 'nodename nor servname provided, or not known')
Aborting.

As you can see, the host-list is already set to ['other_host', ] when fabric starts to execute mycmd.

The way you are doing it is not normally how I would use Fabric.

from fabric.api import *

def hostname():

    env.hosts = ['myhosts']

def mycmd():
    print env.hosts
    run('ls -l')

To run this I would then do

fab hostname mycmd

this allows you to seperate which host/hosts you want to perform the command on.

hope it helps.

Have you tried to used the hosts decorator?

from fabric.api import env, run, hosts

@hosts('myhost')
def mycmd(foo):
    print(env.hosts)
    run('ls')