vRA 8.10 Ubuntu 22 template with cloud-init fails sometimes with: Used fallback datasource

[V00Z11]

I’m in the process of creating new VM templates for vRA. These include Ubuntu 22, Rocky 9 und SLES 15 SP4. All templates are configured the same, including EFI, Secure Boot, Passthrough CD drive, CPU, Memory and Disk config.

With the Rocky 9 and SLES 15 templates I don’t have any problems. Every deployment is working just fine and the machines are customized with Cloud-init. The customizations include changing the root password, setting static IPs and changing the hostname.

Ubuntu 22 on the other hand is driving me nuts. For some deployments, the Cloud-init customization is working just fine, for other deployments, Cloud-init cannot get the cloudConfig from the OVF datasource (ISO) and just exists with the warning “Used fallback datasource”. Even though the ISO is attached and I can even read the content with “cat /dev/sr0”.

This is even happening when I start a deployment where multiple machines are deployed at the same time. Just now I deployed 3 machines and for 2 of them Cloud-init worked, but 1 failed.

This tells me that the VM template, the vRA cloud template and the Cloud Config should be fine. But I don’t have a clue why it fails every other time.

Did anybody else run into the same issue?

Failed cloud-init:

Successful cloud-init:

Both of the above deployments are from the same deployment, with the same template, cloud config and so on.

[ronaldod]

Why not inject the metadata by the vmware tools. Much more stable. (only in combination with cloud(base)-init.

[V00Z11 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for responding! Your idea and https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/90331 pointed me in the right direction and I got it fixed. Scenario 1 is the solution that worked for me. 

/etc/cloud/cloud.cfg

disable_root: false

ssh_pwauth: true

# disable_vmware_customization: false # should not be set

no_ssh_fingerprints: true

network:

  config: disabled

/etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/90_dpkg.cfg

datasource_list: [ OVF, VMware ]

/etc/systemd/system/cloud-init.target.wants/cloud-init.service

[Unit]

(...)

After=dbus.service

/lib/systemd/system/open-vm-tools.service

[Unit]

(...)

After=dbus.service

/etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml

network:

  ethernets:

    ens192: # or ens160

      optional: true

      dhcp4: true

      dhcp-identifier: mac

  version: 2

/etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml delete

cloud-init clean --logs --seed

Cloud Template

customizeGuestOs: true

cloudConfig: |

    #cloud-config

    ssh_pwauth: true

    chpasswd:

        expire: false

        users:

        - name: root

            password: '${input.password}'

            type: text

    users:

        - name: root

            ssh_authorized_keys:

            - '${input.sshkey}'

    runcmd:

        - hostnamectl set-hostname ${self.resourceName}

        - touch /etc/cloud/cloud-init.disabled

        - eject

 vSphere OS Customization will do the networking part automatically (even for static ip assignments). After that cloud init does it’s part.

[ronaldod]

I push everything with cloud-init and no cd ovf needed or all kind of scripts.

Just create a second variable in your template and push it into the guestinfo.metadata.

Live just became so easy with this. Best thing it is pretty universal. Only you need the latest cloud-init that supports this option.

I used this based on this article https://blog.v12n.io/cloud-init-with-vrealize-automation-and-vsphere-no-cd-drive/