Public bug reported: cloud-init OVF datasource currently supports the OVF "ISO" transport (attached cdrom). It should be updated to also support the com.vmware.guestInfo transport.
In this transport the ovf environment file can be read with: vmtoolsd "--cmd=info-get guestinfo.ovfEnv" Things to note: a.) I recently modified ds-identify to invoke the vmtoolsd command above in order to check the presense of the transport. It seemed to work fine, running even before open-vm-tools.service or vgauth.service was up. See http://paste.ubuntu.com/p/Kb9RrjnMjN/ for those changes. I think this can be made acceptable if do so only when on vmware. b.) You can deploy a VM like this using OVFtool and the official Ubuntu OVA files. You simply need to modify the .ovf file inside the .ova to contain <VirtualHardwareSection ovf:transport="iso com.vmware.guestInfo"> Having both listed will "attach" both when deployed. c.) after doing this and getting the changes into released ubuntu we should change the official OVA on cloud-images.ubuntu.com to have the com.vmware.guestInfo listed as a supported transport. Example ovftool command to deploy: ovftool --datastore=SpindleDisks1 \ --name=sm-tmpl-ref \ modified-bionic-server-cloudimg-amd64.ovf \ "vi://administrator@vsphere.local:$PASSWORD@10.245.200.22/Datacenter1/host/Autopilot/" ** Affects: cloud-init Importance: Undecided Status: New -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Yahoo! Engineering Team, which is subscribed to cloud-init. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1807466 Title: add support for ovf transport com.vmware.guestInfo Status in cloud-init: New Bug description: cloud-init OVF datasource currently supports the OVF "ISO" transport (attached cdrom). It should be updated to also support the com.vmware.guestInfo transport. In this transport the ovf environment file can be read with: vmtoolsd "--cmd=info-get guestinfo.ovfEnv" Things to note: a.) I recently modified ds-identify to invoke the vmtoolsd command above in order to check the presense of the transport. It seemed to work fine, running even before open-vm-tools.service or vgauth.service was up. See http://paste.ubuntu.com/p/Kb9RrjnMjN/ for those changes. I think this can be made acceptable if do so only when on vmware. b.) You can deploy a VM like this using OVFtool and the official Ubuntu OVA files. You simply need to modify the .ovf file inside the .ova to contain <VirtualHardwareSection ovf:transport="iso com.vmware.guestInfo"> Having both listed will "attach" both when deployed. c.) after doing this and getting the changes into released ubuntu we should change the official OVA on cloud-images.ubuntu.com to have the com.vmware.guestInfo listed as a supported transport. Example ovftool command to deploy: ovftool --datastore=SpindleDisks1 \ --name=sm-tmpl-ref \ modified-bionic-server-cloudimg-amd64.ovf \ "vi://administrator@vsphere.local:$PASSWORD@10.245.200.22/Datacenter1/host/Autopilot/" To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/cloud-init/+bug/1807466/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~yahoo-eng-team Post to : yahoo-eng-team@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~yahoo-eng-team More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp