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Cloud-init with Projects in Prism Central

  • 24 November 2020
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Userlevel 2
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I created a Project in Prism Central and assigned a bunch of users to it, expecting them to be able to provision their own VMs with cloud-init configs customised to their liking.

I found this awesome example code https://www.nutanix.dev/code_samples/create-linux-vm-customised-with-cloud-init/ which shows it can be done with API calls, however, as a user in the Project, there does not seem to be any options in the PC UI that allow me to specify a custom script when creating a VM.

Are custom scripts deliberately hidden when using Projects? How are my users supposed to customise their VMs?

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Best answer by waddles 25 November 2020, 06:47

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Hi waddles,

 

Are you using VM templates or images to create a VM?

Prism Self Service User Guide 5.18: Creating a VM indicates that if a VM is being deployed using a VM template then “Guest Customization (VM template only): If customizations were implemented when the VM template was added to the catalog, they appear here.”

CPU, memory size and network should be selectable at the stage of creating a VM. Let me know if that’s not what you see.

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Right, so in order to allow customisation for SSP consumers, they need to be cloning a Template VM, not deploying a new VM based on a disk image clone.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=SSP-Admin-Guide-v5_18:ssp-catalog-management-c.html was what I needed.

The problem is I have only 2 options when adding a Template VM to the catalog:

  1. Allow consumers to use a “Guided Setup” to decide only these fields:
    • username and password
    • ssh key
    • locale
    • hostname
  2. Force consumers to use a predetermined cloud-init script that is created at the time of publishing the Template to the Catalog

There is still no way for consumers to perform their own cloud-init customisations at the time the VM is created (by cloning the Template VM).

Userlevel 6
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Hi waddles,

I’m glad the information proved to be useful. SSP allows for limited guest customisation. For more option consider using Calm

Userlevel 2
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Thanks but this is just a CE cluster so we won’t be paying for a Calm license.