Controlling boot behavior with personality

Personality enables user-specified files to be injected into a server’s file system at boot. Personality supports only text files that are Base64-encoded and does not support binary or zip files.

A file path on the remote server is required as well as a path to the local file. The maximum length of the file path is 255 bytes. Up to five different file/path content pairs can be included.

If you specify a file for injection that already exists on the remote server, the pre-existing file is renamed with a .bak extension and a time stamp is appended, such as .bak.1246036261.5785. The .bak file is owned by the root user and a member of the root group.

The maximum size for each pair cannot exceed 1,000 decoded (versus encoded) bytes. If a larger file size limit is required, we recommend using a config drive instead.

See also

Using flavors to create a new cloud server Changing the characteristics of a cloud server Monitoring events on your cloud server Creating a cloud server in a region Handling host-related issues Operating a cloud server with nova-agent Configuring disks for a cloud server Managing access with SSH keys Synchronizing time with NTP Describing a cloud server with metadata: Setting and updating metadata Showing metadata

Understanding flavor classes: Flavor classes for virtual cloud servers Flavor classes for OnMetal cloud servers Choosing a flavor class Checking for regional availability of flavor classes Controlling cloud server initiation: Controlling boot behavior with cloud-init Controlling boot behavior with a config drive Controlling boot behavior with personality

Understanding Cloud Servers introduces key ideas. To learn how to put these ideas to work, start at Actions for Cloud Servers.