.. _rerun_cloud_init:

How to re-run ``cloud-init``
****************************

.. _fully_rerun_cloud_init:

How to fully re-run cloud-init
==============================

Most cloud-init configuration is only applied to the system once. This means
that simply rebooting the system will only re-run a subset of cloud-init.
Cloud-init provides two different options for re-running cloud-init for
debugging purposes.

.. warning::

    Making cloud-init run again may be destructive and must never be done on a
    production system. Artefacts such as ssh keys or passwords may be
    overwritten.

Remove the logs and cache, then reboot
--------------------------------------

This method will reboot the system as if cloud-init never ran. This
command does not remove all cloud-init artefacts from previous runs of
cloud-init, but it will clean enough artefacts to allow cloud-init to
think that it hasn't run yet. It will then re-run after a reboot.

.. code-block:: shell-session

   cloud-init clean --logs --reboot

Run a single cloud-init module
------------------------------

If you are using :ref:`user data cloud-config<user_data_formats-cloud_config>`
format, you might wish to re-run just a single configuration module.
Cloud-init provides the ability to run a single module in isolation and
separately from boot. This command is:

.. code-block:: shell-session

   $ sudo cloud-init single --name cc_ssh --frequency always

Example output:

.. code-block::

   ...
   Generating public/private ed25519 key pair
   ...

This subcommand is not called by the init system. It can be called manually to
load the configured datasource and run a single cloud-config module once, using
the cached user data and metadata after the instance has booted.

.. note::

    Each cloud-config module has a module ``FREQUENCY`` configured: ``PER_INSTANCE``, ``PER_BOOT``, ``PER_ONCE`` or ``PER_ALWAYS``. When a module is run by cloud-init, it stores a semaphore file in :file:`/var/lib/cloud/instance/sem/config_<module_name>.<frequency>` which marks when the module last successfully ran. Presence of this semaphore file prevents a module from running again if it has already been run.

Inspect :file:`cloud-init.log` for output of what operations were performed as
a result.

.. _partially_rerun_cloud_init:

How to partially re-run cloud-init
==================================

If the behavior you are testing runs on every boot, there are a couple
of ways to test this behavior.

Manually run cloud-init stages
------------------------------

Note that during normal boot of cloud-init, the init system runs these
stages at specific points during boot. This means that running the code
manually after booting the system may cause the code to interact with
the system in a different way than it does while it boots.

.. code-block:: shell-session

   cloud-init init --local
   cloud-init init
   cloud-init modules --mode=config
   cloud-init modules --mode=final

Reboot the instance
-------------------

Rebooting the instance will take a little bit longer, however it will
make cloud-init stages run at the correct times during boot, so it will
behave more correctly.

.. code-block:: shell-session

    reboot -h now
