Since we announced our metadata service in August, we have expanded this functionality’s availability and how you can use it to accelerate compute instance setup.
cloud-init is a universally compatible standard for customizing cloud instances across providers and can be used in place of or along with StackScripts. Though StackScripts work well on our platform, we wanted to make it easier for developers migrating to or using Akamai cloud computing services alongside other cloud providers by using industry-standard scripting.
Functioning as a light infrastructure as code tool, cloud-init metadata makes it easy to “plug and play” scripted deployments to reduce the overall work needed to set up a new compute instance. On our platform, use cloud-init to:
- Manage users and user groups on new compute instances;
- Automatically install software when your compute instance finishes provisioning; and
- Execute bash scripts on first boot.
This service also enables you to build custom images on our platform. While we maintain official images for Ubuntu (20.04 and up) and Debian 11, if you’re running version 23 of cloud-init or above, you can customize images with the distribution of your choice. For a full rundown on how to build config files for quick deployment, check out our guide on automatically configuring and securing your server with cloud-init.
You can find Akamai’s configuration data in cloud-init’s list of data sources.
Get started with using our metadata, now available in the following 13 locations:
- Amsterdam (Netherlands), Chennai (India), Chicago (USA), Jakarta (Indonesia), Los Angeles (USA), Miami (USA), Milan (Italy), Osaka (Japan), Paris (France), São Paulo (Brazil), Seattle (USA), Stockholm (Sweden), and Washington D.C. (USA)
For more information, check out our Overview of the Metadata Service.
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