etcher VS cloudinit

Do you honestly believe they would publish the source on GitHub https://github.com/balena-io/etcher if it was?

A while ago I started getting error messages when running dnf up, saying that the metadata for the repos balena-etcher uses. Looking at their github page, I see that there is an open issue about this, where they say they can no longer afford to host the package at cloudsmith, but there is no info about how to work around the issue.

BalenaEtcher, the portable appimage version can be run from anywhere, https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/releases/download/v1.18.4/balenaEtcher-1.18.4-x64.AppImage

Is recommend trying the official appimage from here

(this is a link to Balena Etcher: https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/releases/download/v1.18.4/balenaEtcher-1.18.4-x64.AppImage Download, go to properties, enable 'executable' permission, double click)

Look at : https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/releases

Newer versions of OS use cloud init -> https://cloud-init.io/

Overall, I think in an article that focuses on cloud computing (specifically AWS) there's too much time being spent in the local command line of a server.

It's an especially revealing sentence when the authors says that "Most attacks won’t be against what we’ve covered in this guide, but against the applications you install next. Properly done, containers can limit the impact."

If we are running containerized applications and we are already in the cloud, why are we futzing around on the command line of a Linux box? Why are we not using a cload orchestrator that abstracts the OS from the equation entirely?

If we do have a need to be on a bare Linux box, all of this OS configuration is better handled with cloud init [1], a configuration management tool like Ansible, and/or by building an image with Packer.

I know that seems like overkill for a small hobby reluctant sysadmin project type of deal but it's very little extra effort once you get used to the workflow. I would even recommend putting this infrastructure in Terraform even though, again, it seems like overkill at first.

Someone else in the comments mentioned that it's easier to just start with a hardened image from the AWS Marketplace, and I also agree with that idea. Find a free hardened image and make that the base for your system.

[1] https://cloud-init.io

Found this related article: "cloud-init re-generates network config every reboot overwriting manual admin changes on CentOS." https://github.com/canonical/cloud-init/issues/2983

You can just lift and shift an exisiting project into the cloud, but let's say you're using AWS's CFT's to define an EC2 instance. Great! throw in some cloud-init ( https://cloud-init.io/ ) script for your ubuntu cloud image for some automated-ness in provisioning and you're off to the races!

You can run an os that has a cloudinit setup. This will on boot do whatever you have in the cloud init file. Check out https://cloud-init.io/ its becoming a standard in operating systems that aren't desktop oriented.

Oh, and as a big bonus, Xen Orchestra supports cloud-init which is a really nice way to customize VMs from a baseline.

Since this is the standard Ubuntu image it's presumably cloud-init which is interpreting your user_data, in which case there are two other possible techniques to use to get this key registered.

Most Linux distribution images in EC2 include cloud-init which runs on startup and retrieves the user data. If you are using a standard Linux distribution AMI then it's probably cloud-init that is taking actions based on your user data, and so cloud-init's documentation on User Data Formats is the relevant reference for you.

Yup. There are several options.