Cloud-init support

[mjudeikis]

It would be nice to support cloud-init in the images.
Ubuntu does this and it very easy to bootstrap OS for mass production or headless install.

If cloud-init would be installed in the base image we can add scripts into image before we ship to the cards.
In example:
Wifi configuration could look like :
https://github.com/synpse-hq/image-tools/blob/main/assets/cloud-init/50-wifi.cfg.template

where you mount image and add the files in the image:
https://github.com/synpse-hq/image-tools/blob/main/hack/bootstrap/bootstrap_ubuntu.sh

This allows users to configure/reconfigure

cc: @RobertCNelson RobertCNelson

[RobertCNelson]

Sweet thanks @mjudeikis

[RobertCNelson]

@mjudeikis please give this a test...

https://rcn-ee.net/rootfs/debian-armhf/2022-01-03/

Regards,

[mjudeikis]

@RobertCNelson it worked like a charm.
I was able to deliver files and configure system on boot using cloud-init by just mounting image before start and adding cloud-init config.

There is one limitation I face is configuring wifi:

Wifi configuration is only available to distros with netplan rendering support. 

Any chance you can add netplan.io (already default on ubuntu IoT) into the same image and republish to try?

I already integrated it to synpse.net CLI:

synpse build --image am57xx-debian-11.2-iot-armhf-2022-01-03-4gb.img --wifi-name xxxx --wifi-password xxxxxx --controller-uri http://localhost:8080/api  --access-key xxxxxxxxx --namespace xxxxxxx --project xxxxxx

This basically returns you a pre-configured image which automatically connects to users wifi network (if netplan is there) and you can access the device immediately :)

I think once we sort out this we can write a generic doc for "headless bootstraping" where you can just drop few files into mountpoint and have generic image ready to ship

[RobertCNelson]

We can definitely figure it out.. we just moved from connman -> systemd-networkd... it looks like netplan.io can run on top of systemd-networkd so we will do a little testing. ;)

[mjudeikis]

We can definitely figure it out.. we just moved from connman -> systemd-networkd... it looks like netplan.io can run on top of systemd-networkd so we will do a little testing. ;)

Yes please :)

[mjudeikis]

I tried this on base debian 11 and found that for some reason even with netplan this didnt worked. Not sure if my way of building images or something else..