第9章 Adding metadata to instances
The Compute (nova) service uses metadata to pass configuration information to instances on launch. The instance can access the metadata by using a config drive or the metadata service.
- Config drive
- Config drives are special drives that you can attach to an instance when it boots. The config drive is presented to the instance as a read-only drive. The instance can mount this drive and read files from it to get information that is normally available through the metadata service.
- Metadata service
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The Compute service provides the metadata service as a REST API, which can be used to retrieve data specific to an instance. Instances access this service at
169.254.169.254or atfe80::a9fe:a9fe.
9.1. Types of instance metadata
Cloud users, cloud administrators, and the Compute service can pass metadata to instances:
- Cloud user provided data
- Cloud users can specify additional data to use when they launch an instance, such as a shell script that the instance runs on boot. The cloud user can pass data to instances by using the user data feature, and by passing key-value pairs as required properties when creating or updating an instance.
- Cloud administrator provided data
The RHOSP administrator uses the vendordata feature to pass data to instances. The Compute service provides the vendordata modules
StaticJSONandDynamicJSONto allow administrators to pass metadata to instances:-
StaticJSON: (Default) Use for metadata that is the same for all instances. -
DynamicJSON: Use for metadata that is different for each instance. This module makes a request to an external REST service to determine what metadata to add to an instance.
Vendordata configuration is located in one of the following read-only files on the instance:
-
/openstack/{version}/vendor_data.json -
/openstack/{version}/vendor_data2.json
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- Compute service provided data
- The Compute service uses its internal implementation of the metadata service to pass information to the instance, such as the requested hostname for the instance, and the availability zone the instance is in. This happens by default and requires no configuration by the cloud user or administrator.
