Re: [EXT] cloud-init?

[Thompson, David]

Hi Simon,

On Fri, Aug 26, 2022 at 4:16 AM Simon Josefsson via Development of GNU
Guix and the GNU System distribution. <guix-devel@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> I would like to deploy Guix VM's and in many VM hosting environments,
> having cloud-init on the Guix VM image would be useful for configuration
> of network interfaces etc.  I tried searching the mailing list archives
> and bug database, but could not find anything except that the
> cloud-utils package has been added to Guix.
>
> The philosophy of cloud-init and Guix system configuration is probably
> at odds, but basic support for booting and starting sshd and printing
> the SSH fingerprint, and possibly some DHCP/network config is probably
> not too difficult to achieve.  A 'cloud-init' package in Guix could do
> as much as is possible to do, or at least document the gap between
> philosophies.
>
> I haven't looked into packaging cloud-init, but first wanted to ask if
> anyone is aware of work in this area?  Are people interested in this?

I can only cite my experiences doing devops on AWS for the past 5
years, but I personally avoid relying on cloud-init on EC2 and try to
catch when other developers use it to do something because there's
always a better way.  That better way is almost always to add a
one-shot systemd service (these are not Guix System servers) to the VM
image that starts on boot.  What are some situations in which
cloud-init is unavoidable?  I wouldn't think cloud-init would need to
start sshd since the init system would automatically do that.

None of this is to say that I wouldn't be in favor of having
cloud-init support.  I'm just trying to understand if it's a necessity
in a certain context or if it would be for the purpose of providing a
familiar tool to help people who are used to using it with other
distros.

- Dave