Copilot Explanation

You can use the cloud-localds command to create a cloud-init ISO that can be mounted as a CDROM when creating a VM with KVM/QEMU. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Create the cloud-init configuration files (user-data and meta-data):

   # user-data
   #cloud-config
   runcmd:
     - echo "Hello, World!" > /etc/motd
     - add-apt-repository -y ppa:example/ppa
     - apt-get update
     - apt-get install -y some-package

   # meta-data
   instance-id: iid-local01
   local-hostname: ubuntu

2. Install the cloud-image-utils package if it's not already installed:

   sudo apt-get install cloud-image-utils

3. Create the cloud-init ISO using cloud-localds:

   cloud-localds seed.iso user-data meta-data

4. Create the VM using virt-install and attach the cloud-init ISO as a CDROM:

   virt-install --name my-vm --memory 2048 --vcpus 2 \
     --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/my-vm.qcow2,size=20 \
     --disk path=seed.iso,device=cdrom \
     --os-type linux --os-variant ubuntu20.04 \
     --network network=default \
     --graphics none --console pty,target_type=serial \
     --location 'http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/focal/main/installer-amd64/' \
     --extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

This method will create a cloud-init ISO that can be used to provide user-data and meta-data to your VM during its creation¹²³.

Source: Conversation with Copilot, 10/29/2024

(1) cloud-localds (1) — cloud-image-utils — Debian testing — Debian Manpages.

(2) Using Generic Cloud Images on a local machine - AlmaLinux OS.

(3) Create and use a local cloud-init datasource.

(4) http://almalinux.org/almalinux/8.

(5) http://almalinux.org/almalinux/9.

(6) https://releases.pagure.org/libosinfo/?C=M.

(7) https://releases.pagure.org/libosinfo/osinfo-db-.

(8) https://wiki.almalinux.org/cloud/Generic-cloud.html.