tiny-cloud/user-data-file.md

User Data

User-data file is loaded during early stage. Location of this file defined by kernel paramter: ds=<provider>;s=<path>. For example for nocloud provider: ds=nocloud;s=http://my.miniserve.instance/tinycloud/ tiny cloud will search for a file with name "user-data" at http://my.miniserve.instance/tinycloud/ resource.

Tiny-Cloud currently supports several user-data types and you could use ONE of them:

• alpine-config
• cloud-config
• script

The user-data file is used to configure Alpine Linux state at the boot time. It supports a variety of modules that can be used to install packages, configure users and groups, and more.

Alpine-Config Data Type

Alpine config Must have #alpine-config as fist line in the file. Rest of the file is a yaml which describes several alpine-spesific configuration paramters:

#alpine-config
apk:
  cache: # path to apk cache where /etc/apk/cache link follows
  repositories: # <map> defines resulted url https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community
    - base_url: # The base usr of the repository ( https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine )
      version: # (optional) examples: [ 3.16 | 3.21 | edge ]  if not set will be retrieved from the system
      repos: # <list>
        - community

autoinstall: # [ true | false] install alpine on the biggest empty disk found in the system

Cloud-Config Data Type

Alpine config Must have #cloud-config as fist line in the file.

#cloud-config
user: # <map> sets default user
  name: # <string>

groups: # <list> groups for default user
  - wheel
  - admin

users: # <list>
  # first one become default user
  - name:
    homedir:
    shell:
    primary_group:
    gecos: # description for the user
    system: # [ true | false ] create a system user
    no_create_home: # [ true | false ] do not create home directory for the user. Default: false
    lock_passwd: # reset password of the user
    ssh_authorized_keys: # <list>
    groups: wheel,power # comma-separated list of groups for the user
    doas: # content of the /etc/doas.d/<name>.conf doas file
      -

ssh_authorized_keys: # public key to be authorized as default user

write_files: # <list> Writes content of the file to the system. Can be used to define configuration files.
  - path: # destination path of the file (required)
    permissions: # file mode (default 0644)
    owner: # owner:group of the file (default root:root)
    encoding: # provided endoding of the file [gzip|gz|gz+base64|gzip+base64|gz+b64|gzip+b64|base64|b64|text/plain] (default text/plain)
    append: # if "true", then content will be added to the end of the file
    content: | # (required)
      here is multiline
      content of your file

ntp:
  enabled: # checks for [ yes | true ]. Otherwise do not enables ntp service
  ntp_client: # [ ntpd | chrony | openntpd ] (default: chrony)

package_update: # if "true" runs `apk update`

package_upgrade: # if "true" runs `apk upgrade`

packages: # <list>
  - curl
  - bash

Script Data Type

Scipt user-data could be used to run arbitrary user script at the system init. User-data file must have script executor specific shebang, started with #! For example shell script:

#!/bin/sh

echo "running custom script at init time"