nova/doc/source/user/user-data.rst
Matt Riedemann 3fc85389e5 Import user-data page from openstack-manuals
This imports the "provide-user-data-to-instances" page
from the old openstack-manuals user guide.

Since we don't have a glossary, the :term: link is removed
and replaced with just giving the glossary definition as
the first part of the doc.

Change-Id: Iae70d9b53d6cefb3bcb107fe68499cccb71fc15e
Partial-Bug: #1714017
2017-10-24 12:22:34 -04:00

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Provide user data to instances
==============================
*User data* is a blob of data that the user can specify when they launch an
instance. The instance can access this data through the metadata service or
config drive. Commonly used to pass a shell script that the instance runs on
boot.
For example, one application that uses user data is the
`cloud-init <https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CloudInit>`__ system,
which is an open-source package from Ubuntu that is available on various
Linux distributions and which handles early initialization of a cloud
instance.
You can place user data in a local file and pass it through the
``--user-data <user-data-file>`` parameter at instance creation.
.. code-block:: console
$ openstack server create --image ubuntu-cloudimage --flavor 1 \
--user-data mydata.file VM_INSTANCE