How to Update Cloud-Init User Data on a Vultr Bare Metal Instance

1. Navigate to Products and click Compute.
2. Click your target instance to open its management page.
3. Navigate to the User-Data tab.
4. Enter a script or cloud config in the Cloud-Init User-Data field.
5. Click Update to apply changes.

1. Send a GET request to the List Bare Metal Instances endpoint and note your target instance's ID.

   $ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/bare-metals" \
     -X GET \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}"

2. Send a PATCH request to the Update Bare Metal endpoint to update the Cloud-Init user data on the instance.

   console Copy

   $ curl "https://api.vultr.com/v2/bare-metals/{baremetal-id}" \
     -X PATCH \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     --data '{
       "user_data" : "<cloud-init-data>"
     }'
   

   Explain Code

1. List all Bare Metal instances available in your Vultr account and note the target instance's ID.

   console Copy

   $ vultr-cli bare-metal list
   

   Explain Code

2. Upload new Cloud-Init user data to the instance using a file on your workstation.

   console Copy

   $ vultr-cli bare-metal user-data set <instance-id> --userdata "<script-path>"
   

   Explain Code

Cloud-Init user data can only be set during instance creation in Terraform and cannot be updated on an existing Bare Metal instance without recreating it.

1. Open your Terraform configuration for the new Bare Metal instance.

2. Add the user_data argument to the Bare Metal resource to run a script at first boot.

   terraform Copy

   resource "vultr_bare_metal_server" "bm" {
       # ...existing fields (region, plan, label, etc.)
   
       user_data = <<-EOT
       #cloud-config
       packages:
         - nginx
       runcmd:
         - systemctl enable --now nginx
       EOT
   }
   

   Explain Code

3. Apply the configuration and observe the following output:

   Apply complete! Resources: 1 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.