Perfect Proxmox Template with Cloud Image and Cloud Init

Instructions

Choose your Ubuntu Cloud Image. Here in this example will use ubuntu cloud-init image. Download Ubuntu (replace with the url of the one you chose from above)

wget https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/focal/current/focal-server-cloudimg-amd64.img

Create a new virtual machine

qm create 8000 --memory 2048 --core 2 --name ubuntu-cloud --net0 virtio,bridge=vmbr0

Import the downloaded Ubuntu disk to local-lvm storage

qm importdisk 8000 focal-server-cloudimg-amd64.img local-lvm

Attach the new disk to the vm as a scsi drive on the scsi controller

qm set 8000 --scsihw virtio-scsi-pci --scsi0 local-lvm:vm-8000-disk-0

Add cloud init drive

qm set 8000 --ide2 local-lvm:cloudinit

Make the cloud init drive bootable and restrict BIOS to boot from disk only

qm set 8000 --boot c --bootdisk scsi0

Add serial console

qm set 8000 --serial0 socket --vga serial0

DO NOT START YOUR VM

Now, configure hardware and cloud init, then create a template and clone. If you want to expand your hard drive you can on this base image before creating a template or after you clone a new machine. I prefer to expand the hard drive after I clone a new machine based on need.

Create template.

qm template 8000

Clone template.

qm clone 8000 135 --name yoshi --full

Troubleshooting

If you need to reset your machine-id

sudo rm -f /etc/machine-id
sudo rm -f /var/lib/dbus/machine-id

Then shut it down and do not boot it up. A new id will be generated the next time it boots. If it does not you can run:

sudo systemd-machine-id-setup

Ref:

https://docs.technotim.live/posts/cloud-init-cloud-image/
https://blog.stefandroid.com/2021/07/02/proxmox-debian-cloud-init-template.html
https://docs.powerhost.io/?docs=proxmox-cloud-init-template-guide