diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 799a0a51..21adf3c5 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ doc/build/
 *.log
 *.sql
 *.sqlite
+logs/*
 
 # OS generated files #
 ######################
@@ -64,3 +65,7 @@ tests/plugins
 tests/playbooks
 tests/test.retry
 
+# Vagrant artifacts
+.vagrant
+
+
diff --git a/manual-test.rc b/manual-test.rc
index fa1cdf95..f7e77710 100644
--- a/manual-test.rc
+++ b/manual-test.rc
@@ -18,5 +18,16 @@ export ANSIBLE_LIBRARY=${HOME}/.ansible/plugins/library
 # specified in ansible.cfg
 export ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH=${HOME}/.ansible/roles:$(pwd)/..
 
+export ANSIBLE_SSH_ARGS="-o ControlMaster=no \
+  -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null \
+  -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no \
+  -o ServerAliveInterval=64 \
+  -o ServerAliveCountMax=1024 \
+  -o Compression=no \
+  -o TCPKeepAlive=yes \
+  -o VerifyHostKeyDNS=no \
+  -o ForwardX11=no \
+  -o ForwardAgent=yes"
+
 echo "Run manual functional tests by executing the following:"
 echo "# ./.tox/functional/bin/ansible-playbook -i tests/inventory tests/test.yml -e \"rolename=$(pwd)\""
diff --git a/run_tests.sh b/run_tests.sh
index 5b6ca346..482a3894 100755
--- a/run_tests.sh
+++ b/run_tests.sh
@@ -24,28 +24,28 @@ if [ ! "$(which pip)" ]; then
 fi
 
 # Install bindep and tox
-pip install bindep tox
+sudo pip install bindep tox
 
 # CentOS 7 requires two additional packages:
 #   redhat-lsb-core - for bindep profile support
 #   epel-release    - required to install python-ndg_httpsclient/python2-pyasn1
 if [ "$(which yum)" ]; then
-    yum -y install redhat-lsb-core epel-release
+    sudo yum -y install redhat-lsb-core epel-release
 fi
 
 # Install OS packages using bindep
 if apt-get -v >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
-    apt-get update
+    sudo apt-get update
     DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
-      apt-get -q --option "Dpkg::Options::=--force-confold" \
+      sudo apt-get -q --option "Dpkg::Options::=--force-confold" \
       --assume-yes install `bindep -b -f bindep.txt test`
 else
-    yum install -y `bindep -b -f bindep.txt test`
+    sudo yum install -y `bindep -b -f bindep.txt test`
 fi
 
 # run through each tox env and execute the test
 for tox_env in $(awk -F= '/envlist/ {print $2}' tox.ini | sed 's/,/ /g'); do
-  if [[ "${tox_env}" != "ansible-functional" ]] && [[ ${tox_env} != "func_*" ]]; then
+  if [ "${tox_env}" != "ansible-functional" ]; then
     tox -e ${tox_env}
   elif [ "${tox_env}" == "ansible-functional" ]; then
     if ${FUNCTIONAL_TEST}; then
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index 9d696d59..8a46e1fa 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -113,6 +113,7 @@ setenv =
     # This is required as the default is '/etc/ansible/roles' or a path
     # specified in ansible.cfg
     ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH = {homedir}/.ansible/roles:{toxinidir}/..
+    ANSIBLE_TRANSPORT = "ssh"
     PYTHONUNBUFFERED = 1
 commands =
     rm -rf {homedir}/.ansible/plugins
@@ -158,6 +159,7 @@ commands =
 install_command =
     pip install -U --force-reinstall {opts} {packages}
 
+
 [testenv:func_logs]
 commands =
     bash -c 'mkdir -p {toxinidir}/logs'