Hi @me554b5ddf77bd4849acbdb294

I’ve just tried to spin up two droplets (FreeBSD and Ubuntu) with this:

#cloud-config
write_files:
  - path: /root/test.txt
    content: |
      This is the write_files and should be line 1 of 2
runcmd:
 - echo "This is the runcmd and should be line 2 of 2" >> /root/test.txt

And this file /root/test.txt looks like this after droplet creation on Ubuntu (correct):

This is the write_files and should be line 1 of 2
This is the runcmd and should be line 2 of 2

But on FreeBSD it looks like this (wrong):

This is the runcmd and should be line 2 of 2

That’s because write-files is not included in stage cloud_init_modules on FreeBSD.

Can you create a ticket to Support via the control panel, where you link to this thread. It seems like a bug, but I’m not sure if the FreeBSD cloud-init is just limited a bit.

FreeBSD /usr/local/etc/cloud/cloud.cfg

# Written by the DigitalOcean provisioning process
syslog_fix_perms: root:wheel

datasource_list: ['ConfigDrive', 'DigitalOcean', None]

disable_root: true

# Create the default user
users:
 - default

# This will cause the set+update hostname module to not operate (if true)
preserve_hostname: false

# The modules that run in the 'init' stage
cloud_init_modules:
 - seed_random
 - bootcmd
 - set_hostname
 - update_hostname
 - users-groups
 - ssh

# The modules that run in the 'config' stage
cloud_config_modules:
 - ssh-import-id
 - locale
 - runcmd

# The modules that run in the 'final' stage
cloud_final_modules:
 - rightscale_userdata
 - scripts-per-once
 - scripts-per-boot
 - scripts-per-instance
 - scripts-user
 - ssh-authkey-fingerprints
 - phone-home
 - final-message
 - power-state-change

# Do not consume vendor-data
vendor_data:
   enabled: false

system_info:
   distro: freebsd
   default_user:
     name: freebsd
     lock_passwd: false
     gecos: FreeBSD
     groups: [wheel]
     sudo: ["ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL"]
     shell: /bin/sh

Ubuntu /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg

# The top level settings are used as module
# and system configuration.

# A set of users which may be applied and/or used by various modules
# when a 'default' entry is found it will reference the 'default_user'
# from the distro configuration specified below
users:
   - default

# If this is set, 'root' will not be able to ssh in and they 
# will get a message to login instead as the above $user (ubuntu)
disable_root: true

# This will cause the set+update hostname module to not operate (if true)
preserve_hostname: false

# Example datasource config
# datasource: 
#    Ec2: 
#      metadata_urls: [ 'blah.com' ]
#      timeout: 5 # (defaults to 50 seconds)
#      max_wait: 10 # (defaults to 120 seconds)

# The modules that run in the 'init' stage
cloud_init_modules:
 - migrator
 - seed_random
 - bootcmd
 - write-files
 - growpart
 - resizefs
 - set_hostname
 - update_hostname
 - update_etc_hosts
 - ca-certs
 - rsyslog
 - users-groups
 - ssh

# The modules that run in the 'config' stage
cloud_config_modules:
# Emit the cloud config ready event
# this can be used by upstart jobs for 'start on cloud-config'.
 - emit_upstart
 - disk_setup
 - mounts
 - ssh-import-id
 - locale
 - set-passwords
 - grub-dpkg
 - apt-pipelining
 - apt-configure
 - package-update-upgrade-install
 - landscape
 - timezone
 - puppet
 - chef
 - salt-minion
 - mcollective
 - disable-ec2-metadata
 - runcmd
 - byobu

# The modules that run in the 'final' stage
cloud_final_modules:
 - rightscale_userdata
 - scripts-vendor
 - scripts-per-once
 - scripts-per-boot
 - scripts-per-instance
 - scripts-user
 - ssh-authkey-fingerprints
 - keys-to-console
 - phone-home
 - final-message
 - power-state-change

# System and/or distro specific settings
# (not accessible to handlers/transforms)
system_info:
   # This will affect which distro class gets used
   distro: ubuntu
   # Default user name + that default users groups (if added/used)
   default_user:
     name: ubuntu
     lock_passwd: True
     gecos: Ubuntu
     groups: [adm, audio, cdrom, dialout, dip, floppy, netdev, plugdev, sudo, video]
     sudo: ["ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL"]
     shell: /bin/bash
   # Other config here will be given to the distro class and/or path classes
   paths:
      cloud_dir: /var/lib/cloud/
      templates_dir: /etc/cloud/templates/
      upstart_dir: /etc/init/
   package_mirrors:
     - arches: [i386, amd64]
       failsafe:
         primary: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
         security: http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
       search:
         primary:
           - http://%(ec2_region)s.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
           - http://%(availability_zone)s.clouds.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
           - http://%(region)s.clouds.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
         security: []
     - arches: [armhf, armel, default]
       failsafe:
         primary: http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports
         security: http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports
   ssh_svcname: ssh

You can do something like this:

runcmd:
  - |
    set -x
    (
      while [ ! -f /path/to/my-script.sh ]; do
        sleep 1
      done
      /path/to/my-script.sh
    ) &

This should work regardless of whether write_files or runcmd happens first, but note it will cause the runcmd block to exit before the command actually finishes.

For me this is fine, my-script.sh also needs to run after cloud-init finishes all of its other processing, which is achieved as follows:

# Wait for cloudinit to finish
while [ ! -f /var/lib/cloud/instance/boot-finished ]; do
    sleep 1
done

Ran into this as well on ubuntu 18.04 :(

On other clouds (AWS) this works as expected (write_files before runcmd) for standard ubuntu 18.04