Chapter 3. Setting up cloud-init

How do I create users with cloud-init?

To create users with cloud-init, you must create two files: meta-data and user-data, and then package them into an ISO image.

How do I expire the cloud-user’s password so that the user must change it during their first login?

To force "cloud-user" to change their password at first login, change the line chpasswd: {expire: False} to chpasswd: {expire: True} in the user-data file.

#cloud-config
password: atomic
chpasswd: {expire: True}
ssh_pwauth: True
ssh_authorized_keys:
  - ssh-rsa AAA...SDvz user1@yourdomain.com
  - ssh-rsa AAB...QTuo user2@yourdomain.com

This works because the password and chpasswd operate on the default user unless otherwise indicated.

Note: This is a global setting. If you set this to True all users who are created (see below) will have to change their password.

How do I change the default username?

To change the default username from cloud-user to something else, add the line user: username to the user-data file:

#cloud-config
user: username
password: atomic
chpasswd: {expire: False}
ssh_pwauth: True
ssh_authorized_keys:
  - ssh-rsa AAA...SDvz user1@yourdomain.com
  - ssh-rsa AAB...QTuo user2@yourdomain.com

How do I set the root password?

To set the root password you must create a user list in the chpasswd section of the user-data file. The format of the list is shown below. Whitespace is significant, so do not include any on either side of the colon (:) as it will set a password with a space in it. If you use this method to set the user passwords, all passwords must be set in this section. This means that the password: line must be moved from the top and into this section.

#cloud-config
ssh_pwauth: True
ssh_authorized_keys:
  - ssh-rsa AAA...SDvz user1@yourdomain.com
  - ssh-rsa AAB...QTuo user2@yourdomain.com
chpasswd:
  list: |
     root:password
     cloud-user:atomic
  expire: False

How do I manage Red Hat subscriptions with cloud-init?

The rh_subscription directive can be used to perform various operations concerning registering your system (for RHEL Atomic 7.4 and later). Following are a few examples showing different available options:

rh_subscription:
  username: atomic@redhat.com
  password: '<password>'
  auto-attach: True
  service-level: self-support

Note that service-level is only used with the auto-attach option. Alternatively, you can use an activation key and org instead of username and password:

rh_subscription:
  activation-key: example_key
  org: 12345
  auto-attach: True

There is also support for adding pools. The following is the equivalent of the subscription-manager attach --pool=XYZ01234567 command:

rh_subscription:
  username: atomic@redhat.com
  password: '<password>'
  add-pool: XYZ01234567

You can set up the server hostname in /etc/rhsm/rhsm.conf with the following:

rh_subscription:
  username: atomic@redhat.com
  password: '<password>'
  server-hostname: atomic.example.com
  auto-attach: True

How do I add more users during initial system configuration? How do I set additional user options?

Users are created and described in the users section of the user-data file. Adding this section requires that options for the default user be set here as well.

If the first entry in the users section is default, the default user, cloud-user will be created along with the other users. If the default line is omitted, then cloud-user is not created.

#cloud-config
users:
  - default
  - name: foobar
    gecos: User N. Ame
    selinux-user: staff_u
    groups: users,wheel
    ssh_pwauth: True
    ssh_authorized_keys:
      - ssh-rsa AA..vz user@domain.com
chpasswd:
  list: |
    root:password
    cloud-user:atomic
    foobar:foobar
  expire: False

Note: By default users will be labeled as unconfined_u if there is not an se-linux-user value.

Note: This example places the user foobar into two groups: users and wheel. As of cloud-init 0.7.5, no whitespace is supported in the group list: BZ 1126365

How do I run first boot commands?

The runcmd and bootcmd sections of the user-data file can be used to execute arbitrary commands during startup and initialization. The bootcmd section is run early in the initialization process. The runcmd section is executed near the end of the process by init. These commands are not saved for future boots and will only be executed during the first initialization-boot.

#cloud-config
users:
  - default
  - name: foobar
    gecos: User N. Ame
    groups: users
chpasswd:
  list: |
    root:password
    fedora:atomic
    foobar:foobar
  expire: False
bootcmd:
 - echo New MOTD >> /etc/motd
runcmd:
 - echo New MOTD2 >> /etc/motd

How do I add additional sudoers?

A user can be configured as a sudoer by adding a sudo and groups entry to the users section of the user-data file, as shown below.

#cloud-config
users:
  - default
  - name: foobar
    gecos: User D. Two
    sudo: ["ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL"]
    groups: wheel,adm,systemd-journal
    ssh_pwauth: True
    ssh_authorized_keys:
      - ssh-rsa AA...vz user@domain.com
chpasswd:
  list: |
    root:password
    cloud-user:atomic
    foobar:foobar
  expire: False

How do I set up a static networking configuration?

Add a network-interfaces section to the meta-data file. This section contains the usual set of networking configuration options.

Because of a current bug in cloud-init, static networking configurations are not automatically started. Instead the default DHCP configuration remains active. A suggested work around is to manually stop and restart the network interface via the bootcmd directive.

network-interfaces: |
  iface eth0 inet static
  address 192.168.1.10
  network 192.168.1.0
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  broadcast 192.168.1.255
  gateway 192.168.1.254
bootcmd:
  - ifdown eth0
  - ifup eth0

How do I delete cloud-user and just have root and no other users?

To have only a root user created, create an entry for root in the users section of the user-data file. This section can be as simple as just a name option:

users:
  - name: root
chpasswd:
  list: |
    root:password
  expire: False

Optionally, you can set up SSH keys for the root user as follows:

users:
  - name: root
    ssh_pwauth: True
    ssh_authorized_keys:
      - ssh-rsa AA..vz user@domain.com

How do I set up storage with container-storage-setup?

To set up the size of the root logical volume to 6GB for example instead of the default 3GB, use the write_files directive in user-data:

write_files:
  - path: /etc/sysconfig/docker-storage-setup
    permissions: 0644
    owner: root
    content: |
    ROOT_SIZE=6G

How do I enable the Overlay Graph Driver?

The Overlay Graph Driver is enabled through container-storage-setup. Use the runcmd directive to change the STORAGE_DRIVER option to "overlay2":

runcmd:
  - echo "STORAGE_DRIVER=overlay2" >> /etc/sysconfig/docker-storage-setup

How do I re-run cloud-init on an instance?

In most situations it is not possible to re-run cloud-init to change the configuration of a virtual machine that has already been created.

When cloud-init is used in an environment where the Instance ID can be changed (for instance, from Atomic0 to Atomic1), it is possible to re-configure an existing virtual machine by changing the Instance ID and rebooting to re-run cloud-init. This is not recommended practice for production environments because cloud-init is supposed to be set up to create on first boot systems that are fully and properly configured.

In most IAAS implementations it is not possible to change the Instance ID. If cloud-init must be re-run, the instance should be cloned in order to obtain a new Instance ID.

Can I put shell scripts in bootcmd and runcmd?

Yes. If you use a list value for bootcmd or runcmd, each list item is run in turn using execve. If you use a string value, then the entire string is run as a shell script. Alternatively, if you want simply to use cloud-init to run a shell script, you can provide a shell script (complete with shebang (#!) ) instead of providing cloud-init with a '.yaml' file.