Can I install CloudLinux OS on OVHCloud template? / Network unavailable on OVH installation.

Issue

When installing the operating system on the server, OVH offers to install the OS from its template.

This is what it looks like:

However, this kind of installation uses a lot of presets, as well as the cloud-init service that manages them, which can lead to problems during the subsequent installation of CloudLinux.

When you boot up the server, the already mentioned cloud-init service read the configuration from config-server (not from the client server) and uses DHCP to determine the server's network and provide an IP address to the server.

In the case of Cloudlinux, the service most likely cannot detect the type of operating system or the service itself does not work correctly with the LVE kernel, which leads to the inaccessibility of the network.

How the service operation looks on CentOS boot:

[root@test ~]# service cloud-init status
Redirecting to /bin/systemctl status cloud-init.service
● cloud-init.service - Initial cloud-init job (metadata service crawler)
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/cloud-init.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (exited) since Sun 2022-01-16 09:00:24 +03; 2min 34s ago
  Process: 1297 ExecStart=/usr/bin/cloud-init init (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 1297 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   CGroup: /system.slice/cloud-init.service

Jan 16 09:00:24 test cloud-init[1297]: ci-info: |   1   | [SERVER IP] |    0.0.0.0     | 255.255.255.0 |    eth0   |   U   |
Jan 16 09:00:24 test cloud-init[1297]: ci-info: +-------+--------------+----------------+---------------+-----------+-------+
Jan 16 09:00:24 test cloud-init[1297]: ci-info: +++++++++++++++++++Route IPv6 info+++++++++++++++++++
Jan 16 09:00:24 test cloud-init[1297]: ci-info: +-------+-------------+---------+-----------+-------+
Jan 16 09:00:24 test cloud-init[1297]: ci-info: | Route | Destination | Gateway | Interface | Flags |
Jan 16 09:00:24 test cloud-init[1297]: ci-info: +-------+-------------+---------+-----------+-------+
Jan 16 09:00:24 test cloud-init[1297]: ci-info: |   9   |  fe80::/64  |    ::   |    eth0   |   U   |
Jan 16 09:00:24 test cloud-init[1297]: ci-info: |   13  |   ff00::/8  |    ::   |    eth0   |   U   |
Jan 16 09:00:24 test cloud-init[1297]: ci-info: +-------+-------------+---------+-----------+-------+
Jan 16 09:00:24 test systemd[1]: Started Initial cloud-init job (metadata service crawler).

And how it looks after the boot with CloudLinux OS kernel:

As you can see, the eth0 ([SERVER IP]) can't be obtained, which leads to the inaccessibility of the network.

Environment

• OVH CentOS Cloud templates
• OVH custom CloudInit configuration

Cause

The issue is related to OVH CentOS Cloud templates and OVH custom CloudInit configuration. This isn't a CloudLinux OS issue.

Solution

The solution is to install the OS from the custom or own template:

We can also offer CloudLinux images from this documentation article:

https://docs.cloudlinux.com/cloudlinux_installation/#installing-new-servers

Alternative solution (requires some skills):

1. Setup static IP network configuration.

2. Disable NetworkManager service.

3. Disable cloud-init service.

Useful links

https://blog.ovhcloud.com/how-do-we-deploy-cloud-ready-images-on-bare-metal-servers/

https://docs.cloudlinux.com/cloudlinux_installation/#installing-new-servers