1 - This patch https://bugs.launchpad.net/cloud-init/+bug/1356855/ (should not affect anything else and also should not be needed in later versions, ie 0.7.6+)
well, cloudstack fixed their bug as well to not need this patch anymore, admittedly - this happened yesterday:
https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf?p=cloudstack.git;a=blobdiff;f=system...
Yes, indeed, but this is for the unreleased version of Cloudstack, all the existing deployments will not be capable of this and the patch is required, probably the main reason upstream has accepted it.
2 - As it is, cloud-init will use the Openstack data source by default and it will not work in a Cloudstack environment, it needs to be told to use the Cloudstack data source in the cfg file
But, its able to consume all the other datasources without needing to set priority order. Can you verify this is still the case with cloud-init 0.7.5 and propose a patch against the cloud.cfg file in https://git.centos.org/summary/rpms!cloud-init.git in branch c7-extras ?
Sure, will do. 0.7.4 was not capable of this, which is why I haven't even thought of attempting it. I'll update you with my findings.
3 - The data source is not capable of setting the user/root password, a 3rd party script needs to be bundled in - this step can be optional if ssh keys are the only means allowed for authentication, but this would also make the image pretty useless in many ACS environs that AFAIK do use the feature
but you can set a password using user-data scripts right ? so if we were to support ssh-keys out of the box, with the site specific admin being able to default a user-data script, that would resolve the equation from both sides.
In theory yes, but this feature, while proposed - still needs to be approved and the software modified for it. There is a relatively tight integration of the UI and the feature, so multiple components need to be modified. It will take time and needless to say existing deployments will not have it.
Lucian