Re: cloud init documentation ?

On Wed, 24 Jul 2024, at 19:08, mike tancsa wrote:
> I gave the cloud-init image a spin, but beyond adding some users, I am 
> not able to get packages added or even runcmd or bootcmd to execute.   
> This is using the FreeBSD-14.1-RELEASE-amd64-BASIC-CLOUDINIT-zfs.raw 
> image from the FreeBSD download directory.  Where can I find 
> documentation on what is supported ?
>
> Is there also a way to test the config beyond deploying and seeing if it 
> works or not ?
>
>      ---Mike

hi Mike

cloudinit is somewhat cryptic. Please post whatever cloud-config or
user-data file you're using, what cloud provider, what cloudinit
version is in your freebsd image.

With the caveat that I've not specifcally used these CLOUDINIT images,
here's what I know about cloudinit itself on FreeBSD.

For cloudinit to work, you have to have a DataSource that provides
user data to cloudinit. Virtualbox or bhyve don't do this automatically.

You can test via qemu, or via jail, but you need to set up a DataSource,
either on the network, or on the local filesystem (good for testing).

Here's a qemu example:

https://docs.cloud-init.io/en/latest/howto/run_cloud_init_locally.html

For jails, see https://people.freebsd.org/~dch/posts/2024-07-25-cloudinit/
for details, and let me know if anything is awry.

TLDR: install jail, add cloudinit, add 3 files, zfs snapshot, restart jail

(or restart both dsidentify, and cloudinit)

# /usr/local/etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/00_nocloud.cfg
datasource_list: ['NoCloud']
datasource:
  NoCloud:
    seedfrom: file:///root/cloud/
network:
  config: disabled
  timeout: 1

# /root/cloud/meta-data empty file or just copy what your cloud issues

# /root/cloud/user-data
#cloud-config
... your stuff here

I have tested all of these against cloud-init-23.3 from ports quarterly:

```yaml
#cloud-config
# deploy ssh key to primary user
# create a new account, one true shell, sudo, join wheel
users:
  - default
  - name: ansible
    groups: wheel
    shell: /bin/sh
    sudo: 'ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL'
    ssh_authorized_keys:
      - ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIJZ0cNlRkFRRleUZhFjIZYJ2p7h7wNWvODGBLEzfSfvr
# touch an arbitrary file very early on
write_files:
- content: |
    awesome
  path: /var/tmp/cloudinit_was_here
# run an arbitrary command which happens after that
bootcmd:
  - echo excellent | tee -a /var/tmp/cloudinit_was_here
# run an arbitrary command later on
runcmd:
  - echo fantastic | tee -a /var/tmp/cloudinit_was_here
packages:
  - www/gurl
```

this gives the expected (sorted) output in /var/tmp/cloudinit_was_here:

awesome
excellent
fantastic

latest cloudinit 24.2 also works, but now bootcmd runs before write_files,
so the above output is missing 'excellent', and there are some issues
in handling datasources, because the dsidentify tool that handles that
is written in shell, and cannot process valid yaml.

In my experience, every cloudinit release has minor breakage. Mina has
made extensive progress over the last couple of years improving FreeBSD
support, with upstream.

We should actively support nuageinit (merci bapt@) in FreeBSD src, which
is missing the following features used above:

- bootcmd (early cmd)
- runcmd (late cmd)
- packages
- write_files
- fetching metadata from e.g. http://169.254.169.254/ style urls

[nuageinit]: https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/?id=16a6da44e28d
[cloudinit]: https://github.com/canonical/cloud-init/issues?q=freebsd

A+
Dave