Can not override distro default user

[ElSamhaa]

Bug report

According to the docs, the default user data can be overriden by the user dictionary keys. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Steps to reproduce the problem

Apply the below user_data to Almalinux 9.5 generic cloud image

#cloud-config

user:
  name: samha
  plain_text_passwd: password
  lock_passwd: false

users:
- name: root
  plain_text_passwd: password
  lock_passwd: false

The root password is modified but the default user (i.e almalinux) is not changed to samha.

Environment details

• Cloud-init version: 23.4
• Operating System Distribution: Almalinux
• Cloud provider, platform or installer type: KVM

cloud-init logs

cloud-init.tar.gz

[TheRealFalcon]

@ElSamhaa , based on your logs, it appears that whatever platform you're running isn't correctly identifying itself to cloud-init, or the metadata service associated with that platform wasn't working properly when cloud-init attempted to connect.

From cloud-init.log:

2025-01-16 21:16:58,695 - __init__.py[DEBUG]: Detected platform: DataSourceOpenStack [net,ver=None]. Checking for active instance data
2025-01-16 21:16:58,696 - util.py[DEBUG]: Resolving URL: http://[fe80::a9fe:a9fe] took 0.001 seconds
2025-01-16 21:16:58,696 - util.py[DEBUG]: Resolving URL: http://169.254.169.254 took 0.000 seconds
2025-01-16 21:16:58,700 - url_helper.py[DEBUG]: [0/1] open 'http://[fe80::a9fe:a9fe]/openstack' with {'url': 'http://[fe80::a9fe:a9fe]/openstack', 'stream': False, 'allow_redirects': True, 'method': 'GET', 'timeout': 10.0, 'headers': {'User-Agent': 'Cloud-Init/23.4-19.el9.alma.1'}} configuration
2025-01-16 21:16:58,851 - url_helper.py[DEBUG]: [0/1] open 'http://169.254.169.254/openstack' with {'url': 'http://169.254.169.254/openstack', 'stream': False, 'allow_redirects': True, 'method': 'GET', 'timeout': 10.0, 'headers': {'User-Agent': 'Cloud-Init/23.4-19.el9.alma.1'}} configuration
2025-01-16 21:16:58,852 - url_helper.py[WARNING]: Exception(s) [UrlError("HTTPConnectionPool(host='fe80::a9fe:a9fe', port=80): Max retries exceeded with url: /openstack (Caused by NewConnectionError('<urllib3.connection.HTTPConnection object at 0xffff7f1a9eb0>: Failed to establish a new connection: [Errno 22] Invalid argument'))"), UrlError("HTTPConnectionPool(host='169.254.169.254', port=80): Max retries exceeded with url: /openstack (Caused by NewConnectionError('<urllib3.connection.HTTPConnection object at 0xffff7dff08b0>: Failed to establish a new connection: [Errno 101] Network is unreachable'))")] during request to http://169.254.169.254/openstack, raising last exception
2025-01-16 21:16:58,852 - url_helper.py[DEBUG]: Calling 'None' failed [0/-1s]: request error [HTTPConnectionPool(host='169.254.169.254', port=80): Max retries exceeded with url: /openstack (Caused by NewConnectionError('<urllib3.connection.HTTPConnection object at 0xffff7dff08b0>: Failed to establish a new connection: [Errno 101] Network is unreachable'))]
2025-01-16 21:16:58,852 - url_helper.py[ERROR]: Timed out, no response from urls: ['http://[fe80::a9fe:a9fe]/openstack', 'http://169.254.169.254/openstack']
2025-01-16 21:16:58,852 - DataSourceOpenStack.py[DEBUG]: Giving up on OpenStack md from ['http://[fe80::a9fe:a9fe]/openstack', 'http://169.254.169.254/openstack'] after 0 seconds
2025-01-16 21:16:58,852 - util.py[WARNING]: No active metadata service found
2025-01-16 21:16:58,852 - util.py[DEBUG]: No active metadata service found
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.9/site-packages/cloudinit/sources/DataSourceOpenStack.py", line 167, in _get_data
    results = self._crawl_metadata()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.9/site-packages/cloudinit/sources/DataSourceOpenStack.py", line 211, in _crawl_metadata
    raise sources.InvalidMetaDataException(
cloudinit.sources.InvalidMetaDataException: No active metadata service found
2025-01-16 21:16:58,852 - __init__.py[DEBUG]: Datasource DataSourceOpenStack [net,ver=None] not updated for events: boot-new-instance
2025-01-16 21:16:58,852 - handlers.py[DEBUG]: finish: init-network/search-OpenStack: SUCCESS: no network data found from DataSourceOpenStack
2025-01-16 21:16:58,852 - handlers.py[DEBUG]: start: init-network/search-None: searching for network data from DataSourceNone
2025-01-16 21:16:58,852 - __init__.py[DEBUG]: Seeing if we can get any data from <class 'cloudinit.sources.DataSourceNone.DataSourceNone'>
2025-01-16 21:16:58,852 - __init__.py[DEBUG]: Update datasource metadata and network config due to events: boot-new-instance
2025-01-16 21:16:58,852 - __init__.py[DEBUG]: Detected platform: DataSourceNone. Checking for active instance data

Further down you can see, 2025-01-16 21:16:58,901 - main.py[DEBUG]: Skipping user-data validation. No user-data found.

If I run your cloud-config within an LXD container, I get the result you're expecting.