Topic: cloud-init

• Driving cloud-init on a fresh Debian or Ubuntu instance: user-data, status --wait, and safe re-runs

  cloud-init applies user-data once at first boot; `cloud-init status --wait` blocks until that run finishes so a provisioning script does not race it, `cloud-init schema --system` catches a bad user-data file before the next boot, and `cloud-init clean` is the documented way to force a full re-run for testing.

  methodology · en · reviewed · knowledge as of 2026-09-24

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