Why you need Cloud-init if you are running open-vm-tools on your Linux VMs in VMware
So you may have found yourself deploying a VM Linux Server such as Redhat, CentOS or Ubuntu in VMware and wondering why isnt may hostname customizing and making changes with the customization.
Without going into a long drawn out explanation of why. What you need to know is that without the Native VMware tools (which is terrible for maintaining) you have to use cloud-init to bridge the customization profile in VMware to work.
I think this was actually a smart move on VMware’s part to leverage an already well known bootstrap program.
So long story short. If you are using open-vm-tools and you customize your hostname and other aspects using VMware’s guest customization, you need cloud-init.
This is installed by doing the following
# yum install -y cloud-init
Make sure that you check those settings like allowing password auth if you are going to need it, and disabled cloud-init after the initial boot.
See this article for fixing those settings:
Ben Tuma
Over 20 years of experience in the Information Technology field. I love technology and seeing how it changes and impacts peoples lives for the better. I have healthy appetite for innovation and problem solving.
I am sharing my knowledge and challenges in hopes to help others as we constantly face ever changes problems in IT and technology.