Test pre-release cloud-init

After the cloud-init team creates an upstream release, cloud-init will be released in the -proposed APT repository for a period of testing. Users are encouraged to test their workloads on this pending release so that bugs can be caught and fixed prior to becoming more broadly available via the -updates repository. This guide describes how to test the pre-release package on Ubuntu.

Add the -proposed repository pocket

The -proposed repository pocket will contain the cloud-init package to be tested prior to release in the -updates pocket.

echo "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc)-proposed main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/proposed.list
apt update

Install the pre-release cloud-init package

apt install cloud-init

Test the package

Whatever workload you use cloud-init for in production is the best one to test. This ensures that you can discover and report any bugs that the cloud-init developers missed during testing before cloud-init gets released more broadly.

If issues are found during testing, please file a new cloud-init bug and leave a message in the #cloud-init IRC channel.

Remove the proposed repository

Do this to avoid unintentionally installing other unreleased packages.

rm -f /etc/apt/sources.list.d/proposed.list
apt update

Remove artefacts and reboot

This will cause cloud-init to rerun as if it is a first boot.

sudo cloud-init clean --logs --reboot