Cloud Init Helper for Proxmox

🚀 A powerful shell script for automating cloud-init VM template creation in Proxmox VE. Streamline your VM deployment with smart defaults, custom configurations, and comprehensive error handling.

Features

• Automated VM template creation from cloud images

• Smart defaults with customizable options

• SSD optimization support

• Custom cloud-init configuration

• Automatic resource detection

• Dry-run capability

• Comprehensive error handling

Prerequisites

The following commands must be available on your Proxmox host:

• qm (Proxmox VM management)

• wget (File downloads)

• qemu-img (Image manipulation)

• pvesm (Proxmox storage management)

Usage

./pveci [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -u, --url URL           Cloud image URL (required)
  -i, --id ID            VM ID (auto-detected if not specified)
  -n, --name NAME        VM name (auto-generated if not specified)
  -m, --memory MB        Memory in MB (default: 1024)
  -c, --cores NUM        Number of CPU cores (default: 1)
  -s, --size SIZE        Disk size (default: 10G)
  -b, --bridge BRIDGE    Network bridge (default: vmbr0)
  -t, --storage STORAGE  Storage pool (auto-detected if not specified)
  --cloud-config PATH    Use custom cloud-init config (file path or URL)
  --dry-run             Show what would be done without executing
  --no-ssd              Disable SSD optimization (default: enabled)
  -h, --help            Show this help message

Examples

1. Basic usage with Ubuntu cloud image:

   ./pveci -u https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/noble/current/noble-server-cloudimg-amd64.img --name ubuntu-cloud

2. Custom configuration:

   ./pveci --url https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/noble/current/noble-server-cloudimg-amd64.img \
        --id 100 \
        --name ubuntu-template \
        --memory 2048 \
        --cores 2 \
        --size 20G

3. Using custom cloud-init config:

   ./pveci -u https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/noble/current/noble-server-cloudimg-amd64.img \
        --cloud-config ./templates/base-and-docker.yaml

Cloud-Init Configurations

The repository includes two predefined cloud-init configurations:

1. base.yaml - Minimal configuration with:

   • qemu-guest-agent installation
   • SSH service enablement

2. base-and-docker.yaml - Extended configuration with:

   • Everything from base.yaml
   • Docker installation and configuration
   • User docker group management
   • Custom MOTD
   • Secure SSH configuration

Installation

Quick Install (Script Only)

If you just need the script without templates:

# Download and install the script
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kricha/cloud-init-helper/main/pveci && \
chmod +x pveci && \
mv pveci /usr/local/bin/

# Verify installation
pveci --help

Download Templates Only

# Create templates directory and download
mkdir -p templates/ && cd templates/ && \
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kricha/cloud-init-helper/main/templates/base.yaml \
     https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kricha/cloud-init-helper/main/templates/base-and-docker.yaml

# Create templates directory
mkdir -p templates/
mv base*.yaml templates/

Full Repository Installation

To get the complete repository with all examples and documentation:

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/kricha/cloud-init-helper.git

2. Make the script executable:

   chmod +x pveci

3. Optional: Move to system path:

   sudo cp pveci /usr/local/bin/

Verifying Installation

After installation, you can verify that everything is working correctly:

1. Check script availability:

   pveci --help

2. Verify templates:

   # For quick install
   ls ~/.config/pveci/templates/
   
   # For repository install
   ls templates/

3. Test with dry-run:

   pveci --url https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/noble/current/noble-server-cloudimg-amd64.img --dry-run

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit pull requests.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.