Cloud-Init Infrastructure Templates

Reusable, generic cloud-init configuration templates for common server infrastructure patterns. These templates are designed to be included in your own cloud-init configurations via #include directives.

🏗️ Architecture

These templates follow a composable pattern:

Generic base templates (this repo) - safe to open source
Your server configurations (private repo) - domain-specific customizations

# your-private-repo/servers/web-server.yaml
#cloud-config-archive

# Environment setup (runs first)
- type: text/cloud-config
  content: |
    write_files:
      - path: /etc/environment.d/90-infrastructure.conf
        content: |
          ADMIN_EMAIL="[email protected]"
          AWS_REGION="us-west-2"
        permissions: '0644'
        owner: root:root

# Include base templates
- type: text/x-include-url
  content: |
    #include
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/your-org/cloud-init-templates/main/base/hardening.yaml
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/your-org/cloud-init-templates/main/base/docker.yaml

# Your application-specific configuration
- type: text/cloud-config
  content: |
    # Your app config here...

📦 Available Base Templates

Template Variants

Some templates come in multiple variants to support different use cases:

Node.js: Choose between nodejs-22.yaml (LTS) or nodejs-24.yaml (Latest) based on your application requirements
PostgreSQL: Single template postgres.yaml installs latest version from PostgreSQL's official repository

`base/hardening.yaml`

Purpose: Security hardening for Ubuntu servers
Features: UFW firewall, fail2ban, automatic security updates, SSH hardening
Environment Variables: None required
Use Case: Apply to all production servers
⚠️ CAUTION: This configuration reboots the server at 2AM UTC time if there are updates that required a reboot. You may not want this.

`base/docker.yaml`

Purpose: Docker CE installation and configuration
Features: Latest Docker CE, docker-compose, systemd integration
Environment Variables: None required
Use Case: Container-based applications
⚠️ CAUTION: You should look into more secure docker-like replacements, like podman.

`base/email-alerts.yaml`

Purpose: Critical system alerts via AWS SES
Features: Login notifications, disk/system monitoring, service failure alerts
Environment Variables: DEVOPS_EMAIL, ALERTS_EMAIL, AWS_REGION
Use Case: Production monitoring and incident response

`base/nodejs-22.yaml` & `base/nodejs-24.yaml`

Purpose: Node.js runtime installation
Features: Node.js 22.x or 24.x LTS via NodeSource repository
Environment Variables: None required
Use Case: Node.js applications

`base/postgres.yaml`

Purpose: PostgreSQL database installation
Features: Latest PostgreSQL from official PostgreSQL repository
Environment Variables: None required
Use Case: Database servers

🔧 Environment Variable System

Templates use environment variables loaded from /etc/environment.d/90-infrastructure.conf for customization without hardcoded values.

⚠️ Important: Using Cloud-Config-Archive

You cannot mix #include with #cloud-config in the same user-data. Instead, use #cloud-config-archive to combine multiple formats.

Correct approach with cloud-config-archive:

#cloud-config-archive

# 1. Create environment files first
- type: text/cloud-config
  content: |
    write_files:
      - path: /etc/environment.d/90-infrastructure.conf
        content: |
          DEVOPS_EMAIL="[email protected]"
        permissions: '0644'
        owner: root:root

# 2. Include base templates
- type: text/x-include-url
  content: |
    #include
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/your-org/cloud-init-templates/main/base/email-alerts.yaml

# 3. Additional configuration
- type: text/cloud-config
  content: |
    merge_how:
      - name: list
        settings: [append]
      - name: dict
        settings: [no_replace, recurse_list]
    packages: [...]

Why this approach works: Cloud-config-archive processes each section in order, ensuring environment files are created before included templates run.

Setting Environment Variables

Create the environment file in your server configuration:

# In your private server configs (using cloud-config-archive)
#cloud-config-archive

- type: text/cloud-config
  content: |
    write_files:
      - path: /etc/environment.d/90-infrastructure.conf
        content: |
          # Email Configuration
          DEVOPS_EMAIL="[email protected]"
          ALERTS_EMAIL="[email protected]"
          ADMIN_EMAIL="[email protected]"

          # Infrastructure
          AWS_REGION="us-west-2"
          BACKUP_RETENTION_DAYS="14"
        permissions: "0644"
        owner: root:root

Environment Variables

Templates use environment variables for customization. Common variables include DEVOPS_EMAIL, ALERTS_EMAIL, AWS_REGION, and SSH_PORT.

📋 Complete reference: See ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLES.md for all available variables, their purposes, and defaults.

🚀 Quick Start

1. Fork this repository

# Create your own copy
gh repo fork your-org/cloud-init-templates

2. Create a server configuration

# servers/web-server.yaml
#cloud-config-archive

# Environment setup (runs first)
- type: text/cloud-config
  content: |
    write_files:
      - path: /etc/environment.d/90-infrastructure.conf
        content: |
          DEVOPS_EMAIL="[email protected]"
          ALERTS_EMAIL="[email protected]"
          AWS_REGION="us-west-2"
        permissions: '0644'
        owner: root:root

# Include base templates
- type: text/x-include-url
  content: |
    #include
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/your-org/cloud-init-templates/main/base/hardening.yaml
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/your-org/cloud-init-templates/main/base/docker.yaml

# Your application-specific config
- type: text/cloud-config
  content: |
    packages:
      - nginx
    runcmd:
      - systemctl enable nginx
      - systemctl start nginx

3. Deploy with cloud provider

Most cloud providers accept cloud-init data during instance creation. Point to your server configuration:

# Use raw GitHub URL for your server config
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/your-org/your-servers/main/servers/web-server.yaml

🔒 Security Best Practices

Base Templates (This Repo)

✅ No hardcoded secrets - All sensitive values use environment variables
✅ Generic configurations - Domain-agnostic settings only
✅ Sensible defaults - Safe fallback values provided
✅ Open source friendly - Safe to publish publicly

Server Configurations (Your Repo)

🔐 Keep private - Contains your domain-specific secrets
🔐 Environment variables - Store sensitive values in env files
🔐 Least privilege - Only expose what's necessary for deployment

📁 Repository Structure

cloud-init-templates/
├── README.md                   # This file
├── ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLES.md    # Environment variable reference
├── base/                       # Base templates
│   ├── docker.yaml             # Docker installation
│   ├── email-alerts.yaml       # AWS SES alerting
│   ├── hardening.yaml          # Security hardening
│   ├── nodejs-22.yaml          # Node.js 22.x runtime
│   ├── nodejs-24.yaml          # Node.js 24.x runtime
│   └── postgres.yaml           # PostgreSQL from official repo
├── examples/                   # Example server configs
│   ├── search-server.yaml      # Search server with Meilisearch
│   └── web-server.yaml         # Web application server
└── tests/                      # Validation test suite
    ├── README.md               # Testing documentation
    ├── run-all-tests.sh        # Comprehensive test runner
    ├── test-email-alerts.sh    # Email alerting tests
    ├── test-hardening.sh       # Security hardening tests
    ├── test-security.sh        # General security tests
    └── utils.sh                # Shared testing utilities

🤝 Contributing

Fork the repository
Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature/new-template
Follow the template standards:
- Use environment variables for customization
- Provide sensible defaults
- Include comprehensive comments
- Test with multiple distributions
Submit a pull request

Template Standards

Environment Loading: All scripts must load env vars:

[ -f /etc/environment.d/90-infrastructure.conf ] && . /etc/environment.d/90-infrastructure.conf

Sensible Defaults: Always provide fallback values:
```
EMAIL="${ADMIN_EMAIL:-admin@example.com}"
```
Documentation: Clearly document required environment variables
Security: No hardcoded secrets or domain-specific information

📚 Examples

See the examples/ directory for complete server configuration examples showing how to combine multiple base templates.

🆘 Support

Documentation: Cloud-Init Docs

📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

🔧 Infrastructure as Code • 🔒 Security First • 🚀 Production Ready

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 16 Commits
.claude		.claude
base		base
docs		docs
examples		examples
scripts		scripts
tests		tests
.gitleaks.toml		.gitleaks.toml
.prettierignore		.prettierignore
.yamlfmt		.yamlfmt
ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLES.md		ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLES.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
Makefile		Makefile
README.md		README.md

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Cloud-Init Infrastructure Templates

🏗️ Architecture

📦 Available Base Templates

Template Variants

`base/hardening.yaml`

`base/docker.yaml`

`base/email-alerts.yaml`

`base/nodejs-22.yaml` & `base/nodejs-24.yaml`

`base/postgres.yaml`

🔧 Environment Variable System

⚠️ Important: Using Cloud-Config-Archive

Setting Environment Variables

Environment Variables

🚀 Quick Start

1. Fork this repository

2. Create a server configuration

3. Deploy with cloud provider

🔒 Security Best Practices

Base Templates (This Repo)

Server Configurations (Your Repo)

📁 Repository Structure

🤝 Contributing

Template Standards

📚 Examples

🆘 Support

📄 License

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Cloud-Init Infrastructure Templates

🏗️ Architecture

📦 Available Base Templates

Template Variants

base/hardening.yaml

base/docker.yaml

base/email-alerts.yaml

base/nodejs-22.yaml & base/nodejs-24.yaml

base/postgres.yaml

🔧 Environment Variable System

⚠️ Important: Using Cloud-Config-Archive

Setting Environment Variables

Environment Variables

🚀 Quick Start

1. Fork this repository

2. Create a server configuration

3. Deploy with cloud provider

🔒 Security Best Practices

Base Templates (This Repo)

Server Configurations (Your Repo)

📁 Repository Structure

🤝 Contributing

Template Standards

📚 Examples

🆘 Support

📄 License

About

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License

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`base/hardening.yaml`

`base/docker.yaml`

`base/email-alerts.yaml`

`base/nodejs-22.yaml` & `base/nodejs-24.yaml`

`base/postgres.yaml`

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