cloud-init should support setting apply_network_config through Azure instance metadata

[ubuntu-server-builder]

This bug was originally filed in Launchpad as LP: #1889112

Launchpad details

affected_projects = []
assignee = None
assignee_name = None
date_closed = None
date_created = 2020-07-27T17:49:49.392976+00:00
date_fix_committed = None
date_fix_released = None
id = 1889112
importance = undecided
is_complete = False
lp_url = https://bugs.launchpad.net/cloud-init/+bug/1889112
milestone = None
owner = johnsonshi
owner_name = Johnson Shi
private = False
status = triaged
submitter = johnsonshi
submitter_name = Johnson Shi
tags = []
duplicates = []

Launchpad user Johnson Shi(johnsonshi) wrote on 2020-07-27T17:49:49.392976+00:00

cloud-init currently only supports reading and setting the Azure apply_network_config option from disk (see https://cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/topics/datasources/azure.html#configuration).

This means that for customers using images that have "Azure apply_network_config" set to true on disk, there is no way for customers to opt out of this behavior during VM deployment. This is because the sole location that cloud-init reads for the "Azure apply_network_config" option is from the disk.

For customers that want to opt out of this behavior, the mitigation for customers would be to (1) deploy the VM, (2) ssh into the VM, (3) set the "Azure apply_network_config" option to false on disk, (4) then reboot the VM in order for the changes to take effect and prevent cloud-init from applying network config on subsequent boots.

Since there is no way to opt out of this behavior on first boot, a good feature request would be for cloud-init to support reading the "Azure apply_network_config" option through cloud-configs passed in through Azure instance metadata.