diff --git a/TESTING.asciidoc b/TESTING.asciidoc
index 5cd8d9e8c53..2a480c57676 100644
--- a/TESTING.asciidoc
+++ b/TESTING.asciidoc
@@ -327,7 +327,7 @@ vagrant plugin install vagrant-cachier
 
 . Validate your installed dependencies:
 -------------------------------------
-mvn -Pvagrant -pl qa/vagrant validate
+mvn -Dtests.vagrant -pl qa/vagrant validate
 -------------------------------------
 
 . Download the VMs. Since Maven or ant or something eats the progress reports
@@ -350,22 +350,22 @@ done
 . Smoke test the maven/ant dance that we use to get vagrant involved in
 integration testing is working:
 ---------------------------------------------
-mvn -Pvagrant,smoke-vms -pl qa/vagrant verify
+mvn -Dtests.vagrant -Psmoke-vms -pl qa/vagrant verify
 ---------------------------------------------
 or this to validate all the VMs:
 -------------------------------------------------
-mvn -Pvagrant,smoke-vms,all -pl qa/vagrant verify
+mvn -Dtests.vagrant=all -Psmoke-vms -pl qa/vagrant verify
 -------------------------------------------------
 That will start up the VMs and then immediate quit.
 
 . Finally run the tests. The fastest way to get this started is to run:
 -----------------------------------
 mvn clean install -DskipTests
-mvn -Pvagrant -pl qa/vagrant verify
+mvn -Dtests.vagrant -pl qa/vagrant verify
 -----------------------------------
 You could just run:
 --------------------
-mvn -Pvagrant verify
+mvn -Dtests.vagrant verify
 --------------------
 but that will run all the tests. Which is probably a good thing, but not always
 what you want.
@@ -380,15 +380,15 @@ packaging and SyvVinit and systemd.
 You can control the boxes that are used for testing like so. Run just
 fedora-22 with:
 --------------------------------------------
-mvn -Pvagrant -pl qa/vagrant verify -DboxesToTest=fedora-22
+mvn -Dtests.vagrant -pl qa/vagrant verify -DboxesToTest=fedora-22
 --------------------------------------------
 or run wheezy and trusty:
 ------------------------------------------------------------------
-mvn -Pvagrant -pl qa/vagrant verify -DboxesToTest='wheezy, trusty'
+mvn -Dtests.vagrant -pl qa/vagrant verify -DboxesToTest='wheezy, trusty'
 ------------------------------------------------------------------
 or run all the boxes:
 ---------------------------------------
-mvn -Pvagrant,all -pl qa/vagrant verify
+mvn -Dtests.vagrant=all -pl qa/vagrant verify
 ---------------------------------------
 
 Its important to know that if you ctrl-c any of these `mvn` runs that you'll
@@ -483,7 +483,7 @@ If you wanted to retest all the release artifacts on a single VM you could:
 # Build all the distributions fresh but skip recompiling elasticsearch:
 mvn -amd -pl distribution install -DskipTests
 # Copy them all the testroot
-mvn -Pvagrant -pl qa/vagrant pre-integration-test
+mvn -Dtests.vagrant -pl qa/vagrant pre-integration-test
 vagrant up trusty && vagrant ssh trusty
 cd $TESTROOT
 sudo ES_CLEAN_BEFORE_TEST=true bats $BATS/*.bats
diff --git a/qa/pom.xml b/qa/pom.xml
index 066f897bbe7..36f357841ed 100644
--- a/qa/pom.xml
+++ b/qa/pom.xml
@@ -152,6 +152,11 @@
     <profiles>
         <profile>
             <id>vagrant</id>
+            <activation>
+                <property>
+                    <name>tests.vagrant</name>
+                </property>
+            </activation>
             <modules>
                 <module>vagrant</module>
             </modules>
diff --git a/qa/vagrant/pom.xml b/qa/vagrant/pom.xml
index b5b2713aa77..db61969a469 100644
--- a/qa/vagrant/pom.xml
+++ b/qa/vagrant/pom.xml
@@ -23,15 +23,14 @@
       <allDebBoxes>precise, trusty, vivid, wheezy, jessie</allDebBoxes>
       <allRpmBoxes>centos-6, centos-7, fedora-22, oel-7</allRpmBoxes>
 
-      <debBoxes>trusty</debBoxes>
-      <rpmBoxes>centos-7</rpmBoxes>
+      <defaultDebBoxes>trusty</defaultDebBoxes>
+      <defaultRpmBoxes>centos-7</defaultRpmBoxes>
 
       <!-- Unless rpmbuild is available on the host we can't test rpm based
            boxes because we can't build the rpm and they fail without the rpm.
            So to get good coverage you'll need to run this on a system with
            rpmbuild installed - either osx via homebrew or fedora/centos/rhel.
            -->
-      <proposedBoxesToTest>${debBoxes}</proposedBoxesToTest>
 
       <!-- rpmbuild location : default to /usr/bin/rpmbuild -->
       <packaging.rpm.rpmbuild>/usr/bin/rpmbuild</packaging.rpm.rpmbuild>
@@ -140,7 +139,6 @@
                             <target unless="${skipTests}">
                                 <taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml"
                                     classpathref="maven.dependency.classpath" />
-                                <echo message="Running package tests on ${boxesToTest}"/>
                                 <ant antfile="src/dev/ant/vagrant-integration-tests.xml"
                                     target="vagrant-test-all-boxes"/>
                             </target>
@@ -152,19 +150,6 @@
     </build>
 
     <profiles>
-        <!-- The following profiles change which boxes are run and whether or
-             not this build depends on the rpm artifact. We only depend on the
-             rpm artifact if this machine is capable of building it and we only
-             test on the rpm based distributions if the rpm is available
-             because the tests require it to be. -->
-        <profile>
-            <!-- Test on all boxes -->
-            <id>all</id>
-            <properties>
-              <debBoxes>${allDebBoxes}</debBoxes>
-              <rpmBoxes>${allRpmBoxes}</rpmBoxes>
-            </properties>
-        </profile>
         <profile>
             <!-- Enable the rpm artifact and rpm-boxes because we're on an
                  rpm-based distribution. -->
@@ -210,7 +195,7 @@
                 </dependency>
             </dependencies>
             <properties>
-                <proposedBoxesToTest>${debBoxes}, ${rpmBoxes}</proposedBoxesToTest>
+                <rpmOk>ok</rpmOk>
             </properties>
         </profile>
         <profile>
@@ -250,20 +235,7 @@
                 </plugins>
             </build>
             <properties>
-                <proposedBoxesToTest>${debBoxes}, ${rpmBoxes}</proposedBoxesToTest>
-            </properties>
-        </profile>
-        <profile>
-            <!-- Only set boxesToTest if it hasn't been set on the command
-                 line. -->
-            <id>set-boxes-to-test</id>
-            <activation>
-                <property>
-                    <name>!boxesToTest</name>
-                </property>
-            </activation>
-            <properties>
-                <boxesToTest>${proposedBoxesToTest}</boxesToTest>
+                <rpmOk>ok</rpmOk>
             </properties>
         </profile>
 
diff --git a/qa/vagrant/src/dev/ant/vagrant-integration-tests.xml b/qa/vagrant/src/dev/ant/vagrant-integration-tests.xml
index 453a7957204..efed4960b5e 100644
--- a/qa/vagrant/src/dev/ant/vagrant-integration-tests.xml
+++ b/qa/vagrant/src/dev/ant/vagrant-integration-tests.xml
@@ -1,10 +1,41 @@
 <?xml version="1.0"?>
 <project name="elasticsearch-integration-tests">
-  <target name="vagrant-test-all-boxes">
+  <target name="vagrant-test-all-boxes" depends="set-boxesToTest">
+    <echo message="Running package tests on ${boxesToTest}"/>
     <foreach list="${boxesToTest}" trim="true" param="box"
       target="vagrant-test" inheritall="true" inheritrefs="true"/>
   </target>
 
+  <target name="set-boxesToTest">
+    <!-- If the user specifies the vagrant=all then try on all boxes. -->
+    <condition property="debBoxes" value="${allDebBoxes}"
+        else="${defaultDebBoxes}">
+      <equals arg1="${tests.vagrant}" arg2="all"/>
+    </condition>
+    <condition property="rpmBoxes" value="${allRpmBoxes}"
+        else="${defaultRpmBoxes}">
+      <equals arg1="${tests.vagrant}" arg2="all"/>
+    </condition>
+    <!-- By defaut only test on debian boxes because we always can build debs.
+         Only test on rpm based boxes if we can build RPM. -->
+    <condition property="proposedBoxesToTest" value="${debBoxes}, ${rpmBoxes}"
+        else="${debBoxes}">
+      <equals arg1="${rpmOk}" arg2="ok"/>
+    </condition>
+    <!-- Only use the proposedBoxesToTest list if the user did -Dtests.vagrant
+         or -Dtests.vagrant=all. Otherwise we assume they did
+         -Dtests.vagrant=somelistofboxes and we just set the boxesToTest to
+         that. If they set an rpm based box and don't have the rpm available
+         its on them. -->
+    <condition property="boxesToTest" value="${proposedBoxesToTest}"
+        else="${tests.vagrant}">
+      <or>
+        <equals arg1="${tests.vagrant}" arg2="true"/>
+        <equals arg1="${tests.vagrant}" arg2="all"/>
+      </or>
+    </condition>
+  </target>
+
   <target name="vagrant-test" depends="vagrant-up">
     <trycatch>
       <try>