Use your Rackspace Cloud account or get a developer one for free

Ensure you have novaclient installed. Refer to http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/installing-python-novaclient-on-linux-and-mac-os for more details.

Clone this repo to your local folder

Run example 1 on Rackspace Cloud, CentOS 6 (PVHVM). Replace 'key' with your own key name. If you don't have a key

key=sri-key
nova boot --flavor=general1-1 \
--image=518d156d-d4e0-483d-a7db-89cd27b50180 \
--key-name $key \
--config-drive=true \
--user-data=example1.yaml \
c0001

A look under the hood

• With the config drive you should see a small 67MB~ disk

   fdisk -l
  
   Disk /dev/xvda: 21.5 GB, 21474836480 bytes
   255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2610 cylinders
   Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
   Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   Disk identifier: 0x00040be1
  
       Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
   /dev/xvda1   *           1        2611    20970496   83  Linux
  
   Disk /dev/xvdd: 67 MB, 67108864 bytes
   255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 8 cylinders
   Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
   Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   Disk identifier: 0x00000000
  

• Mount the drive meta_data.json

   mkdir -p /mnt/configdrive
   mount /dev/xvdd  /mnt/configdrive
  

• Look at the meta data files

   cat /mnt/configdrive/openstack/latest/meta_data.json | python -m json.tool
  
   cat /mnt/configdrive/openstack/latest/vendor_data.json | python -m json.tool
  
  

• The yaml file we sent will show up under both these locations.

   less  /mnt/configdrive/openstack/latest/user_data
   less /var/lib/cloud/instance/cloud-config.txt 
  

• Unmount - A good admin never leaves unwanted drives mounted :)

   umount /mnt/configdrive
  

• Runcmd arguments from the Yaml file will also show under scripts.

   less /var/lib/cloud/instance/scripts/runcmd  
  

• The status is also nicely provided.

   less /var/lib/cloud/data/status.json
  

• Review logs

   #If you have the example 1 output config
   less /var/log/cloud-init-output.log 
  
   #Ubuntu
   less /var/log/cloud-init.log 
  
   #CentOS
   grep "CLOUDINIT" /var/log/messages
  

Run example 2 & see if /home/demo/.chef/knife.rb was created

key=sri-key
nova boot --flavor=general1-1 \
--image=518d156d-d4e0-483d-a7db-89cd27b50180 \
--key-name $key \
--config-drive=true \
--user-data=example2.yaml \
c0003

Other Examples; See example 3 & example 4

Read the (docs)[https://cloudinit.readthedocs.org/en/latest/]