Cloud-config let you send additional configuration to the cloud-init process running within your virtual machine. This can be a useful tool to ensure updates are installed as the VM is created, that custom users are created and lots of other possibilities. We recommend to check out the Cloud-Config documentation even though we have some examples on this page

Cloud-config snippets / examples

Create more users than the image default on instance creation

#cloud-config
users:
  - default
  - name: username
    gecos: Full Name Here
    groups: sudo
    sudo: ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
    shell: /bin/bash
    ssh_authorized_keys:
      - ssh-ed25519 <key> <comment>
      - ssh-rsa <key> <comment>
      - ...

If you don't include the "default" entry first in the users-block, the default user for the given image will NOT be created. Therefore: keep it. Full documentation on this, here

Add additional SSH keys to the default user

#cloud-config
ssh_authorized_keys:
    - ssh-rsa <key> <comment>
    - ssh-ed25519 <key> <comment>

Upgrade packages on boot

#cloud-config
package_upgrade: true

Set timezone

#cloud-config
timezone: "Europe/Oslo"

Enable NTNU login via LDAP

...