cloud-init#

LXD supports cloud-init via the following instance or profile configuration keys

cloud-init.vendor-data
cloud-init.user-data
cloud-init.network-config

Before trying to use it, however, first determine which image source you are about to use as not all images have the cloud-init package installed.

The images from the ubuntu and ubuntu-daily remotes are all cloud-init enabled. Images from the images remote have cloud-init enabled variants using the /cloud suffix, e.g. images:ubuntu/22.04/cloud.

Both vendor-data and user-data follow the same rules, with the following caveats:

Users have ultimate control over vendor data. They can disable its execution or disable handling of specific parts of multipart input.
By default it only runs on first boot
Vendor data can be disabled by the user. If the use of vendor data is required for the instance to run, then vendor data should not be used.
User supplied cloud-config is merged over cloud-config from vendor data.

For LXD instances, vendor-data should be used in profiles rather than the instance configuration.

cloud-config examples can be found in the cloud-init documentation.

Working with cloud-init#

For a safe way to test, use a new profile that’s copied from the default profile.

lxc profile copy default test

Then edit the new test profile. You might want to set your EDITOR environment variable first.

lxc profile edit test

For a new LXD installation, the configuration file should look similar to this example:

config: {}
description: Default LXD profile
devices:
  eth0:
    name: eth0
    network: lxdbr0
    type: nic
  root:
    path: /
    pool: default
    type: disk

Once you’ve set up the cloud-init configuration, use lxc launch with --profile <profilename> to apply the profile to the instance.

Adding cloud-init keys to the configuration#

cloud-init keys require a specific syntax. You use a pipe symbol (|) to indicate that all indented text after the pipe should be passed to cloud-init as a single string, with new lines and indentation preserved; this is literal style format used in YAML.

config:
  cloud-init.user-data: |

config:
  cloud-init.vendor-data: |

config:
  cloud-init.network-config: |

Custom user-data configuration#

cloud-init uses the user-data (and vendor-data) section to do things like upgrade packages, install packages or run arbitrary commands.

A cloud-init.user-data key must have a first line that indicates what type of data format is being passed to cloud-init. For activities like upgrading packages or setting up a user, #cloud-config is the data format to use.

An instance’s rootfs will contain the following files as a result:

/var/lib/cloud/instance/cloud-config.txt
/var/lib/cloud/instance/user-data.txt

Upgrade packages on instance creation#

To trigger a package upgrade from the repositories for the instance, use the package_upgrade key:

config:
  cloud-init.user-data: |
    #cloud-config
    package_upgrade: true

Install packages on instance creation#

To install specific packages when the instance is set up, use the packages key and specify the package names as a list:

config:
  cloud-init.user-data: |
    #cloud-config
    packages:
      - git
      - openssh-server

Set the time zone on instance creation#

To set the time zone for the instance, use the timezone key:

config:
  cloud-init.user-data: |
    #cloud-config
    timezone: Europe/Rome

Run commands#

To run a command (such as writing a marker file), use the runcmd key and specify commands as a list:

config:
  cloud-init.user-data: |
    #cloud-config
    runcmd:
      - [touch, /run/cloud.init.ran]

Add a user account#

To add a user account, use the user key. See the documentation for more details about default users and which keys are supported.

config:
  cloud-init.user-data: |
    #cloud-config
    user:
      - name: documentation_example

Custom network configuration#

cloud-init uses the network-config data to render the relevant network configuration on the system using either ifupdown or netplan depending on the Ubuntu release.

The default behavior is to use a DHCP client on an instance’s eth0 interface.

In order to change this you need to define your own network configuration using cloud-init.network-config key in the configuration dictionary which will override the default configuration (this is due to how the template is structured).

For example, to configure a specific network interface with a static IPv4 address and also use a custom name server use

config:
  cloud-init.network-config: |
    version: 1
    config:
      - type: physical
        name: eth1
        subnets:
          - type: static
            ipv4: true
            address: 10.10.101.20
            netmask: 255.255.255.0
            gateway: 10.10.101.1
            control: auto
      - type: nameserver
        address: 10.10.10.254

An instance’s rootfs will contain the following files as a result:

/var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud-net/network-config
/etc/network/interfaces.d/50-cloud-init.cfg (if using ifupdown)
/etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml (if using netplan)