Using cloud-config to run the post-installation configuration

Cloud-config is a feature of cloud-init and is the simplest way to install packages via apt and configure our instances. With cloud-config, we can use a Yet Another Markup Language (YAML) file to describe how an instance is configured, which would require more effort if performed with shell scripts.

Getting ready

Ensure you are logged into a Ubuntu host that has access to our OpenStack environment on the 192.168.100.0/24 public network. This host will be used to run client tools against the OpenStack environment created. If you are using the accompanying Vagrant environment, as described in the Preface, you can use the controller node. This has the python-novaclient package that provides the nova command-line client.

If you created this node with Vagrant, you can execute the following command:

vagrant ssh controller 

Ensure you have set the following credentials (adjust the path to your certificates and key file to match your environment...