Metadata service¶

This document provides end user information about the metadata service. For deployment information about the metadata service, see the admin guide.

Compute uses a metadata service for virtual machine instances to retrieve instance-specific data. Instances access the metadata service at http://169.254.169.254. The metadata service supports two sets of APIs: an OpenStack metadata API and an EC2-compatible API. Both APIs are versioned by date.

To retrieve a list of supported versions for the OpenStack metadata API, make a GET request to http://169.254.169.254/openstack:

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/openstack
2012-08-10
2013-04-04
2013-10-17
2015-10-15
2016-06-30
2016-10-06
2017-02-22
2018-08-27
latest

To list supported versions for the EC2-compatible metadata API, make a GET request to http://169.254.169.254:

$ curl http://169.254.169.254
1.0
2007-01-19
2007-03-01
2007-08-29
2007-10-10
2007-12-15
2008-02-01
2008-09-01
2009-04-04
latest

If you write a consumer for one of these APIs, always attempt to access the most recent API version supported by your consumer first, then fall back to an earlier version if the most recent one is not available.

Metadata from the OpenStack API is distributed in JSON format. To retrieve the metadata, make a GET request to http://169.254.169.254/openstack/2012-08-10/meta_data.json:

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/openstack/2012-08-10/meta_data.json

{
   "uuid": "d8e02d56-2648-49a3-bf97-6be8f1204f38",
   "availability_zone": "nova",
   "hostname": "test.novalocal",
   "launch_index": 0,
   "meta": {
      "priority": "low",
      "role": "webserver"
   },
   "project_id": "f7ac731cc11f40efbc03a9f9e1d1d21f",
   "public_keys": {
       "mykey": "ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAAAgQDYVEprvtYJXVOBN0XNKV\
                 VRNCRX6BlnNbI+USLGais1sUWPwtSg7z9K9vhbYAPUZcq8c/s5S9dg5vTH\
                 bsiyPCIDOKyeHba4MUJq8Oh5b2i71/3BISpyxTBH/uZDHdslW2a+SrPDCe\
                 uMMoss9NFhBdKtDkdG9zyi0ibmCP6yMdEX8Q== Generated by Nova\n"
   },
   "name": "test"
}

Instances also retrieve user data (passed as the user_data parameter in the API call or by the --user_data flag in the openstack server create command) through the metadata service, by making a GET request to http://169.254.169.254/openstack/2012-08-10/user_data:

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/openstack/2012-08-10/user_data
#!/bin/bash
echo 'Extra user data here'

The metadata service has an API that is compatible with version 2009-04-04 of the Amazon EC2 metadata service. This means that virtual machine images designed for EC2 will work properly with OpenStack.

The EC2 API exposes a separate URL for each metadata element. Retrieve a listing of these elements by making a GET query to http://169.254.169.254/2009-04-04/meta-data/:

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/2009-04-04/meta-data/
ami-id
ami-launch-index
ami-manifest-path
block-device-mapping/
hostname
instance-action
instance-id
instance-type
kernel-id
local-hostname
local-ipv4
placement/
public-hostname
public-ipv4
public-keys/
ramdisk-id
reservation-id
security-groups

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/2009-04-04/meta-data/block-device-mapping/
ami

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/2009-04-04/meta-data/placement/
availability-zone

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/2009-04-04/meta-data/public-keys/
0=mykey

Instances can retrieve the public SSH key (identified by keypair name when a user requests a new instance) by making a GET request to http://169.254.169.254/2009-04-04/meta-data/public-keys/0/openssh-key:

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/2009-04-04/meta-data/public-keys/0/openssh-key
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAAAgQDYVEprvtYJXVOBN0XNKVVRNCRX6BlnNbI+US\
LGais1sUWPwtSg7z9K9vhbYAPUZcq8c/s5S9dg5vTHbsiyPCIDOKyeHba4MUJq8Oh5b2i71/3B\
ISpyxTBH/uZDHdslW2a+SrPDCeuMMoss9NFhBdKtDkdG9zyi0ibmCP6yMdEX8Q== Generated\
by Nova

Instances can retrieve user data by making a GET request to http://169.254.169.254/2009-04-04/user-data:

$ curl http://169.254.169.254/2009-04-04/user-data
#!/bin/bash
echo 'Extra user data here'