Creating a VM with metadata from environment variables

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud command line interface yet, install and initialize it.

The folder specified in the CLI profile is used by default. You can specify a different folder using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

1. Specify the environment variables containing the VM local user's name and SSH key; these will be substituted into the VM metadata when the Yandex Cloud CLI command is executed later on:

   export USER_NAME="<username>"
   export SSH_KEY="<SSH_key>"
   

2. Create a file named metadata.yaml and paste into it the following metadata configuration for the new VM:

   metadata.yaml

   #cloud-config
   datasource:
     Ec2:
       strict_id: false
   ssh_pwauth: no
   users:
   - name: $USER_NAME
     sudo: 'ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL'
     shell: /bin/bash
     ssh_authorized_keys:
     - $SSH_KEY
   write_files:
     - path: "/usr/local/etc/startup.sh"
       permissions: "755"
       content: |
         #!/bin/bash
   
         apt-get update
         apt-get install -y nginx
         service nginx start
         sed -i -- "s/ nginx/ Yandex Cloud - $$HOSTNAME/" /var/www/html/index.nginx-debian.html
       defer: true
   runcmd:
     - ["/usr/local/etc/startup.sh"]
   

3. Run this command:

   yc compute instance create \
     --name <VM_name> \
     --hostname <host_name> \
     --zone <availability_zone> \
     --network-interface subnet-name=<subnet_name>,nat-ip-version=ipv4,security-group-ids=<security_group_ID> \
     --create-boot-disk image-folder-id=standard-images,image-family=ubuntu-2204-lts \
     --metadata-from-file user-data="<path_to_configuration_file>"
   

   Where:

   • --name: Name of the new VM.

   • --hostname: Host name for the new VM. This is an optional parameter. If omitted, the VM ID will be used as the host name.

   • --zone: Availability zone the new VM will reside in.

   • --network-interface: Network interface settings for the new VM:

     • subnet-name: Name of the subnet in the availability zone specified in the --zone parameter.
     • security-group-ids: Security group ID.

   • --metadata-from-file: The user-data key with the path to the cloud-config YAML configuration file for value. e.g., --metadata-from-file user-data="/home/user/metadata.yaml".

     Note

     Note that the CLI command for the HOSTNAME variable will not substitute its value into the metadata. Instead, the $HOSTNAME variable name will be provided to the cloud-init configuration when executing the CLI command; the hostname value of the new VM will be substituted in place of that variable later what creating the VM.

     This is why the HOSTNAME variable is specified using the two-dollar syntax in the user-data key: $$HOSTNAME. For more information, see Processing environment variables in metadata via the CLI.

   Result:

   done (36s)
   id: epd8m0fqvkuu********
   folder_id: b1gt6g8ht345********
   created_at: "2025-01-01T14:24:37Z"
   name: my-sample-vm
   zone_id: ru-central1-b
   platform_id: standard-v2
   resources:
     memory: "2147483648"
     cores: "2"
     core_fraction: "100"
   status: RUNNING
   metadata_options:
     gce_http_endpoint: ENABLED
     aws_v1_http_endpoint: ENABLED
     gce_http_token: ENABLED
     aws_v1_http_token: DISABLED
   boot_disk:
     mode: READ_WRITE
     device_name: epd60hoo48qj********
     auto_delete: true
     disk_id: epd60hoo48qj********
   network_interfaces:
     - index: "0"
       mac_address: d0:0d:8b:01:fa:fd
       subnet_id: e2lqsms4cdl3********
       primary_v4_address:
         address: 192.168.15.14
         one_to_one_nat:
           address: 51.250.**.**
           ip_version: IPV4
       security_group_ids:
         - enpbtvidu0g0********
   serial_port_settings:
     ssh_authorization: OS_LOGIN
   gpu_settings: {}
   fqdn: my-web-server.ru-central1.internal
   scheduling_policy: {}
   network_settings:
     type: STANDARD
   placement_policy: {}
   hardware_generation:
     legacy_features:
       pci_topology: PCI_TOPOLOGY_V1
   

   For other configuration examples for user-data, see Examples.

   For more information about the yc compute instance create command, see the CLI reference.