Cloud-init fails for ubuntu 20.04 base AMI and Cloud-init version '23.3.1-0ubuntu1~20.04.1'

[supershal]

What steps did you take and what happened:

The latest cloud-init version 23.3.1-0ubuntu1~20.04.1 that is shipped with base AMI for Ubuntu 20.04 is unable to run boothook https://cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/explanation/format.html#cloud-boothook provided by CAPA, https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cluster-api-provider-aws/blob/0bf78b04b305a77aec37a68c107102231faa7a16/pkg/cloud/services/secretsmanager/secret_fetch_script.go#L20
As a result the CAPA VMs are not initializing as expected.

Steps to reproduce:

1. create an AMI using image-builder

make build-ami-ubuntu-2004

2. Create CAPA cluster using the AMI created in step 1 using instructions at: https://cluster-api-aws.sigs.k8s.io/getting-started.html

3. Check logs at /var/log/cloud-init-output.log

What did you expect to happen:
Cloud-init run successfully on the VM

Anything else you would like to add:
[Miscellaneous information that will assist in solving the issue.]
Log from cloud-init.

2023-10-24 18:53:21] 2023-10-24 18:53:21,892 - util.py[WARNING]: failed stage init
[2023-10-24 18:53:21] failed run of stage init
[2023-10-24 18:53:21] ------------------------------------------------------------
[2023-10-24 18:53:21] Traceback (most recent call last):
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/cloudinit/url_helper.py", line 78, in read_file_or_url
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]     with open(file_path, "rb") as fp:
[2023-10-24 18:53:21] FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/etc/secret-userdata.txt'
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]
[2023-10-24 18:53:21] The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]
[2023-10-24 18:53:21] Traceback (most recent call last):
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/cloudinit/user_data.py", line 238, in _do_include
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]     resp = read_file_or_url(
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/cloudinit/url_helper.py", line 84, in read_file_or_url
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]     raise UrlError(cause=e, code=code, headers=None, url=url) from e
[2023-10-24 18:53:21] cloudinit.url_helper.UrlError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/etc/secret-userdata.txt'
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]
[2023-10-24 18:53:21] The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]
[2023-10-24 18:53:21] Traceback (most recent call last):
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/cloudinit/cmd/main.py", line 766, in status_wrapper
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]     ret = functor(name, args)
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/cloudinit/cmd/main.py", line 453, in main_init
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]     init.update()
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/cloudinit/stages.py", line 484, in update
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]     self._store_processeddata(self.datasource.get_userdata(), "userdata")
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/cloudinit/sources/__init__.py", line 599, in get_userdata
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]     self.userdata = self.ud_proc.process(self.get_userdata_raw())
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/cloudinit/user_data.py", line 88, in process
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]     self._process_msg(convert_string(blob), accumulating_msg)
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/cloudinit/user_data.py", line 159, in _process_msg
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]     self._do_include(payload, append_msg)
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/cloudinit/user_data.py", line 264, in _do_include
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]     _handle_error(message, urle)
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/cloudinit/user_data.py", line 72, in _handle_error
[2023-10-24 18:53:21]     raise RuntimeError(error_message) from source_exception
[2023-10-24 18:53:21] RuntimeError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/etc/secret-userdata.txt' for url: file:///etc/secret-userdata.txt
[2023-10-24 18:53:21] ------------------------------------------------------------
[2023-10-24 18:53:40] Cloud-init v. 23.3.1-0ubuntu1~20.04.1 running 'modules:config' at Tue, 24 Oct 2023 18:53:37 +0000. Up 42.69 seconds.
[2023-10-24 18:53:40] Cloud-init v. 23.3.1-0ubuntu1~20.04.1 running 'modules:final' at Tue, 24 Oct 2023 18:53:40 +0000. Up 46.25 seconds.
[2023-10-24 18:53:40] Cloud-init v. 23.3.1-0ubuntu1~20.04.1 finished at Tue, 24 Oct 2023 18:53:40 +0000. Datasource DataSourceEc2Local.  Up 46.42 second

Environment:

Project (Image Builder for Cluster API:

Additional info for Image Builder for Cluster API related issues:

• OS (e.g. from /etc/os-release, or cmd /c ver): ubuntu-20.04
• Packer Version:
• Packer Provider:
• Ansible Version:
• Cluster-api version (if using):
• Kubernetes version: (use kubectl version):

/kind bug
[One or more /area label. See https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cluster-api/labels?q=area for the list of labels]

[supershal]

we were able to downgrade the cloud-init to 23.2.1-0ubuntu0~20.04.2 and create cluster successfully. mesosphere/konvoy-image-builder#938
cc: @voor @cnmcavoy

We are still not sure of the root cause and change in cloud-init that resulted in this issue.

[supershal]

I was able to provide following override file to the image-builder and build AMI that can run CAPA cloud-init script successfully.
pin-cloud-init-override.json :

{
    "ansible_extra_vars": "pinned_debs=\"cloud-init=23.1.2-0ubuntu0~20.04.2\""
}

I built the image using following makefile target of image-builder
make build-ami-ubuntu-2004 PACKER_VAR_FILES=pin-cloud-init-override.json

We will have to now investigate what changes in 23.3.1-0ubuntu1~20.04.1 broke the CAPA cloud-init script.

[voor]

Moving over some comments from slack so they're not lost in the sands of time:

• AWS mirrors do not seem to be keeping all versions of cloud-init consistently, so needed to download the debian package from elsewhere and host it.
• Pinning the version seems to resolve the issue
• This might be related to #406 which historically caused issues with CAPA.

- name: Downgrade cloud init.
  apt:
    deb: http://launchpadlibrarian.net/679992659/cloud-init_23.2.2-0ubuntu0~20.04.1_all.deb
    state: present
    force: true

- name: Pin cloud init to prevent version issues.
  dpkg_selections:
    name: "{{ item }}"
    selection: hold
  loop:
    - cloud-init

[dlipovetsky]

For image-builder users who have hit this bug and are reading this issue:

We believe the root cause to be in cloud-init, and would like to fix it there (see canonical/cloud-init#4572). We prefer to do this to the alternative, which is to "pin" an older, known-good cloud-init version in image-builder itself.

For now, if you use image-builder to create an Ubuntu 20.04 AMI, please use the workaround described in #1333 (comment).

[dlipovetsky]

This might be related to #406 which historically caused issues with CAPA.

@supershal and I found that the feature override mechanism used in #406 does not work in the recent versions of cloud-init in Ubuntu 20.04. This mechanism was removed from cloud-init in canonical/cloud-init#4228.

Patching cloud-init is the officially documented mechanism now:

Currently used upstream values for feature flags are set in cloudinit/features.py. Overrides to these values should be patched directly (e.g., via quilt patch) by downstreams.

I guess modifying the cloud-init python module to set ERROR_ON_USER_DATA_FAILURE = False is something image-builder can do for now. But once Ubuntu 20.04 is EOL, the feature flag itself will be removed.

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