Attempting to run a bash script via user-data on creation isn't working and no logs

March 3, 2015 5.2k views
Control Panels Logging CentOS
fastest963
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fastest963

On Google/EC2 I run a bash script to setup a server and after reading https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/an-introduction-to-droplet-metadata it seems like I can do that on DigitalOcean too.

I'm running into an issue though where the script isn't running however and I can't find where the logs are. On Google/EC2 they're in /var/log/messages on CentOS but I couldn't find anything in there on DO and the install.log files in /root/ don't have anything about the script either.

The user-data I'm trying to run is:

#!/bin/bash

curl {script url} | sh

If I log into the box and run that curl/pipe it works fine. I'm using the Control Panel to create the droplet. Is there something I'm missing? Thanks!

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7 Answers
ryanpq MOD March 3, 2015

Thanks for brining this to Q&A. Much easier than going over it 140 chars at a time =)

I would recommend using the following in your user-data when creating the droplet in order to accomplish this:

#cloud-config

runcmd:
  - curl {script url} | sh

Since it is a single line, a full bash script shouldn't be necessary.

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  • fastest963 March 5, 2015

    That didn't run it either :( I also looked in /var/log/messages and still didn't see anything there referencing that it ever ran this script. I also looked through other logs in /var/log/ and didn't see anything about it either. Is there another spot where the output goes when this is run?

  • ryanpq MOD March 5, 2015

    Which OS are you using when deploying the new droplet?

  • fastest963 March 6, 2015
    [deleted]
  • fastest963 March 6, 2015

    I'm using CentOS 6.x 64-bit.

    (Apparently I cannot hit "Reply" on your comment until after I post a new comment... Screenshot: http://cl.ly/image/3E382h3e1F2K)

fastest963 March 3, 2015

That didn't run it either :( I also looked in /var/log/messages and still didn't see anything there referencing that it ever ran this script. I also looked through other logs in /var/log/ and didn't see anything about it either. Is there another spot where the output goes when this is run?

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  • fastest963 March 5, 2015

    I realized I posted this in the wrong place. I can't find how to delete this either :(

twarkie March 19, 2015

Did you ever solve this problem? I have the same problem with my newly created droplets (ams3, Debian 7 x64). The user data is available from the meta-data service: "curl http://169.254.169.254/metadata/v1/user-data" but it's not getting executed.

Script (bash) works fine when run manually on the droplet.

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BrandOuellette March 24, 2015

Unfortunately, it looks as though "User Data" scripts do not run automatically on CentOS 6.x (versions < 7).

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aidas2 September 21, 2015

Sorry to bring an old post up, but I'm having the same issue with a new Centos 7 droplet. This user script - https://github.com/digitalocean/do_user_scripts/blob/master/CentOS-7/web-servers/lamp.yml - won't get excecuted on droplet creation.

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info3e93e518870 August 10, 2016

have to say via api I made the mistake of using the field user-data rather than the correct one which is user_data . Once I realised this it worked!!! might help somebody....

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ajitgupta289 March 14, 2018

Even I am unable to run the script. I am using API V2

{
"name": "example.com",
"region": "nyc3",
"size": "s-1vcpu-1gb",
"image": "ubuntu-16-04-x64",
"sshkeys": null,
"backups": false,
"ipv6": false,
"userdata": "#cloud-config runcmd: - curl <URL> | sh",
"private_networking": null,
"volumes": null,
"tags": [
"web"
]
}

Please help me regarding what am I doing wrong here?

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