Home/Cloud/Virtual instances/Customize initial setup

Customize the initial setup for your instance

Why automate the initial setup?

Automating the initial setup saves time and effort, eliminates manual tasks, reduces errors, ensures consistency, enables scalability, and allows you to focus on more valuable tasks. This is where the User Data field in the virtual instance setup page can assist you. By using the User Data field, you can:

Set a password for a VM
Create a user
Configure groups
Add an SSH key
Add repositories and Install packages
Write files
Configure network interfaces

You can access and use the User Data field in three ways:

From the UI Panel

By default, the User Data field is disabled for new instances. Enable it by switching on the toggle and adding your User Data content in the textbox.

From Gcore’s API

To add the User Data field when creating a new instance via Gcore API, provide your User Data content in base64 format via user_data in the payload request.

Let’s say you want to add the User Data field as below:

#cloud-config
password: your_password
chpasswd: { expire:False }
ssh_pwauth: True
power_state:
  mode: reboot
  timeout: 30
  condition: True

First, you must encode this content in base64 format. You can use the base64 command line tool to do so.

echo -n '#cloud-config
password: your_password
chpasswd: { expire:False }
ssh_pwauth: True
power_state:
  mode: reboot
  timeout: 30
  condition: True' | base64

The encoded base64 result should look similar to this:

I2Nsb3VkLWNvbmZpZwpwYXNzd29yZDogeW91cl9wYXNzd29yZApjaHBhc3N3ZDogeyBleHBpcmU6RmFsc2UgfQpzc2hfcHdhdXRoOiBUcnVlCnBvd2VyX3N0YXRlOgogIG1vZGU6IHJlYm9vdAogIHRpbWVvdXQ6IDMwCiAgY29uZGl0aW9uOiBUcnVl

Then, make an API request with the user_data field provided in the payload to create a new instance:

curl 'https://api.gcore.com/cloud/v2/instances/{projectId}/{regionId}' 
...
--data-raw {
"user_data":"I2Nsb3VkLWNvbmZpZwpwYXNzd29yZDogeW91cl9wYXNzd29yZApjaHBhc3N3ZDogeyBleHBpcmU6RmFsc2UgfQpzc2hfcHdhdXRoOiBUcnVlCnBvd2VyX3N0YXRlOgogIG1vZGU6IHJlYm9vdAogIHRpbWVvdXQ6IDMwCiAgY29uZGl0aW9uOiBUcnVl",...}
...

From Terraform

A new virtual instance with the User Data field setup can also be created using Terraform. Encode your User Data field value to base64 format first, then provide the encoded value to the user_data field in the Terraform definition file as below:

resource "gcore_instance" "instance" {

  region_id = your_region_id
  project_id = your_project_id

  name = "your_instance_name"
  ...
 
  user_data = "I2Nsb3VkLWNvbmZpZwpwYXNzd29yZDogeW91cl9wYXNzd29yZApjaHBhc3N3ZDogeyBleHBpcmU6RmFsc2UgfQpzc2hfcHdhdXRoOiBUcnVlCnBvd2VyX3N0YXRlOgogIG1vZGU6IHJlYm9vdAogIHRpbWVvdXQ6IDMwCiAgY29uZGl0aW9uOiBUcnVl"

  ...
}

The User Data field features were built based on cloud-init, an industry-standard multi-distribution method for cross-platform cloud instance initialization.

What is cloud-init?

Cloud-init is an industry-standard software for automating the initialization of cloud instances. You can use cloud-init to perform a number of initial tasks when your instance is booted for the first time, such as installing packages, running a shell script, or configuring the network interfaces.

Cloud-init supports all major Linux distributions:

Alpine Linux
ArchLinux
Debian
DragonFlyBSD
Fedora
FreeBSD
Gentoo Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
Photon OS
RHEL/CentOS/AlmaLinux/Rocky Linux/EuroLinux
SLES/openSUSE
Ubuntu

It uses a YAML-based syntax, allowing the desired setup to be easily represented.

Set a password for an instance

By default, Gcore virtual instance does not allow SSH authentication using username and password alone; only machines with a matching SSH key are allowed to access the instance.

To override this default configuration, set ssh_pwauth: True in the User Data field. Below is an example configuration of how to set your instance to be accessible using a default username and password.

#cloud-config  
password: your_password
chpasswd: { expire: False }  
ssh_pwauth: True
power_state:
  mode: reboot
  timeout: 30
  condition: True

The password field sets the password value for your instance default username. Depending on the instance image, the username may vary. For example, if you create a virtual instance using the Ubuntu distro, your default username will be ubuntu
With the chpasswd: { expire: False } configuration, you do not need to change the password of your default user after you access the instance
ssh_pwauth: True allows your instance to be accessible using a username and password
The power_state block option tells cloud-init to wait 30 seconds for the cloud-init process to finish before shutting down the system

After the virtual instance is up and running, you can access the instance using the ssh command below:

ssh your_default_username@your_instance_ip_address

Provide your password value; you should now be able to access the virtual instance.

Create a user

Using the User Data field, you can create a new user in the virtual instance. Let’s say you want to create a user name, guest, with the same password.

Below is an example of a cloud-init script for creating the guest user.

#cloud-config
...
users:
  - name:             	guest
    sudo:                 ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
    passwd:           	SHA-512_encrypted_value_of_guest_password
    groups:           	users,admin
    lock_passwd:      	false
    shell:                /bin/bash
power_state:
  mode: reboot
  timeout: 30
  condition: True

The sudo option with the value ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL adds sudo rights to this guest user
You need to provide the encrypted value of your password in the passwd field using the SHA-512 encryption method. To generate the SHA-512 encrypted value for your password, you can use the mkpasswd command line tool

mkpasswd -m sha512crypt guest

The guest user will be added automatically to the users and admin groups. If you want to add the user to other groups, check they exist first
The lock_passwd option with the value false allows you to access the virtual instance using a username and password
The shell option with the value bin/bash sets the default shell as bash for the guest user.

Wait a few minutes for your virtual instance to launch, then try to use the guest user to access the instance by running the following command:

ssh guest@your_instance_ip

Type in guest and press Enter. You should be able to log in to your guest user account.

To check for the user groups that guest belongs to, run the following command:

groups

You should see the users and admin groups listed, indicating that the guest user belongs to the users and admin groups.

Configure user groups

You can also configure user groups, such as creating a new one. For example, you can create a new user group called regular-users by adding the below line to the User Data field:

#cloud-config
...
groups:
  - regular-users
power_state:
  mode: reboot
  timeout: 30
  condition: True

After your instance is ready, access it via ssh and run the following command to list all user groups in the system:

compgen -g

The regular-users group should be displayed at the bottom of the result.

Add an SSH key

There are times when you want your new instance to be accessible from other machines. For example, some of your colleagues may also want to use your instance, or you might want to set up a cluster of virtual instances to create an Apache Hadoop or Apache Spark cluster. To do so, you need to add the public SSH keys of other machines to the User Data field.

Below is an example of how to add a public SSH key of another machine to the new instance:

#cloud-config
...
ssh_authorized_keys:
  - ssh-rsa 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 account-name@hostname

Once the instance is up and running, you can view the content of authorized_keys by running the below command:

cat ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

You should see the configured ssh-rsa key listed in the result. The other machines should also be able to access this instance via SSH.

Add repositories and install packages

When using the virtual instance, the default installed packages are usually not sufficient for you to perform your tasks. For example, if you’re a software engineer, you need to use docker to build the application image, or use nmap and traceroute to debug your application network.

Adding the below configuration into your User Data field helps you install the docker, nmap, and traceroute tools when the instance boots up.

#cloud-config
...
apt:
  sources:
    docker.list:
      source: deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $RELEASE stable
      keyid: 9DC858229FC7DD38854AE2D88D81803C0EBFCD88
package_update: true
package_upgrade: true
packages:
  - apt-transport-https
  - ca-certificates
  - gnupg-agent
  - software-properties-common
  - gnupg
  - docker-ce
  - docker-ce-cli
  - nmap
  - traceroute
power_state:
  mode: reboot
  timeout: 30
  condition: True

With packages that are available in the default instance repository like nmap and traceroute, you only need to include them in the packages block. However, with packages that are not available in the default instance repository— like docker-ce and docker-ce-cli—you need to add the Docker repository first using apt sources.

After installing, restart the instance so that these packages are added to the system path. Including the power_state block at the end of the User Data field is helpful because it allows you to use these tools as soon as the instance is ready.

Write files

Sometimes it may be helpful to have existing files for usage after the virtual instance is ready. For example, you could have a YAML file that contains example scripts for working with Docker. Using the feature below, you can create a file named useful-docker-script.yaml in the /root directory.

#cloud-config
...
write_files:
  - path: /root/useful-docker-script.yaml
    content: |
     # This script is for building the   
# docker Image in order to push it later to your DockerHub 
docker build -t dockerhub-username/docker-image-name . 

# This script is for logging in to your DockerHub
      docker login

    # This script is for pushing the image to your DockerHub space
      docker push dockerhub-username/docker-image-name

Access the instance once it is available, and run the following command to check whether the new file useful-docker-script.yaml has been created:

cd /root
ls

You should see a result similar to the below:

useful-docker-script.yaml

Run the following command to view the content of the file useful-docker-script.yaml.

cat useful-docker-script.yaml

You should see a similar output to this:

# This script is for building the
# docker Image in order to push it later to your DockerHub
 docker build -t dockerhub-username/docker-image-name .

 # This script is for logging in to your DockerHub
 docker login

 # This script is for pushing the image to your DockerHub space
 docker push dockerhub-username/docker-image-name

Configure network interfaces

You can also configure network interfaces using the User Data field. For example, you can add a static IP address to your instance network interface. Having a static IP address offers benefits such as:

Allowing you to host a web server using the static IP
Allowing other instances access to your instance reliably using the static IP

When your virtual instance is created, cloud-init will generate a new file named 50-cloud-init.yaml in the /etc/netplan directory and create a new network interface based on that file. To add a static IP address to the network interface, you need to create another file in the /etc/netplan other than 50-cloud-init.yaml. When cloud-init creates the network interface, it will try to merge the content of these two configuration files. As a result, the static IP address will be added to the network interface. Below is an example content of the 50-cloud-init.yaml file.

network:
    version: 2
    renderer: networkd
    ethernets:
        enp3s0:
            dhcp4: true
            match:
                macaddress: fa:16:3e:1f:37:3c
            mtu: 1500
            set-name: enp3s0

To add a static IP to the enp3s0 network interface, you can add the below content to the User Data field.

#cloud-config
...
write_files:
  - content: |
        network:
            version: 2
            renderer: networkd
            ethernets:
              enp3s0:
                addresses:
                - 192.170.1.25/24
                - 2020:1::1/64
                nameservers:
                  addresses:
                  - 8.8.8.8
                  - 8.8.4.4
    path: /etc/netplan/00-add-static-ip.yaml
    permissions: 0644
power_state:
  mode: reboot
  timeout: 30
  condition: True

Cloud-init will execute two steps based on this configuration.

First, cloud-init will create a new file named 00-add-static-ip.yaml in /etc/netplan with instructions to add static IP addresses for both IPv4 (192.170.1.25) and IPv6 (2020:1::1.) The permission of the file is 0644, which means it is readable by any user and writable by cloud-init.
When the instance is rebooted (using the power_state block configuration), cloud-init will try to merge the network configuration for both 00-add-static-ip.yaml and 50-cloud-init.yaml files so that you can add static IP addresses to the enp3s0 network interface.

Access the instance once it is ready, and run the following command:

ip a

You should see something similar to this:

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enp3s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether fa:16:3e:6f:bc:a4 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.170.1.25/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global enp3s0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet 95.85.94.142/24 metric 100 brd 95.85.94.255 scope global dynamic enp3s0
       valid_lft 86289sec preferred_lft 86289sec
    inet6 2020:1::1/64 scope global
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::f816:3eff:fe6f:bca4/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Notice in the enp3s0 interface, the static IP address for IPv4 is 192.170.1.25 and for IPv6 it is 2020:1::1.

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