cloud-init

Display the status of the most recent cloud-init run

$ cloud-init status

$ cloud-init status --wait

$ cloud-init query --list-keys

$ cloud-init query [dot_delimited_variable_path]

$ cloud-init clean

cloud-init [options] command [arguments]

cloud-init is the industry standard for cloud instance initialization. It handles early initialization of cloud instances including networking, storage, SSH keys, user accounts, and package installation.
Cloud-init reads configuration from various datasources (cloud provider metadata, user-data) and applies it during boot.

status

Report cloud-init status

Query instance metadata

Remove logs and artifacts

Gather debugging information

Validate cloud-config files

Primarily useful in cloud/virtual environments with metadata services. Running clean allows cloud-init to run again on next boot, which may reconfigure the system. Some commands require root privileges.

cloud-init was originally developed for Ubuntu by Canonical and has become the de facto standard for cloud instance initialization across most Linux distributions and cloud providers.

cloud-config(5), systemctl(1)