Today I learned… Cloud-init doesn’t like you repeating the same things

Because of templates I was building in my post “Today I learned… Ansible Include Templates”, I thought you could repeat the same sections over again. Here’s a snippet of something like what I’d built (after combining lots of templates together):

Note this is a non-working code sample!


#cloud-config
packages:
- iperf
- git

write_files:
- content: {% include 'files/public_key.j2' %}
  path: /root/.ssh/authorized_keys
  owner: root:root
  permission: '0600'
- content: {% include 'files/private_key.j2' %}
  path: /root/.ssh/id_rsa
  owner: root:root
  permission: '0600'

packages:
- byobu

write_files:
- content: |
    #!/bin/bash
    git clone {{ test_scripts }} /root/iperf_scripts
    bash /root/iperf_scripts/run_test.sh
  path: /root/run_test
  owner: root:root
  permission: '0700'

runcmd:
- /root/run_test

I’d get *bits* of it to run – basically, the last file, the last package and the last runcmd… but not all of it.

Turns out, cloud-init doesn’t like having to rebuild all the fragments together. Instead, you need to put them all together, so the write_files items, and the packages items all live in the same area.

Which, when you think about what it’s doing, which is that the parent lines are defining a variable called… well, whatever that line is, and if you replace it, it’s only going to keep the last one, then it all makes sense really!

JonTheNiceGuy

He/Him. Husband and father. Linux advocating geek. Co-Host on the AdminAdmin Podcast, occasional conference speaker.

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