Configuring User Data Compression

Overview

Cloud-init user-data can grow significantly in size, especially when many configurations and embedded scripts are used. Some infrastructure providers (e.g., AWS, OpenStack) have strict size limits for user-data, which can lead to provisioning failures. To address this, the gzipUserData field in RKE2ConfigSpec allows optional gzip compression of the user-data payload before it is passed to the infrastructure provider.

This feature helps reduce the size of the cloud-init payload but should only be used when the infrastructure provider supports gzipped user-data. For example, OpenStack typically handles it well, while others like Metal3 may not.

Using Gzip Compression for User Data

The gzipUserData field in RKE2ConfigSpec allows you to enable gzip compression for the rendered cloud-init user data. By default, gzipUserData is set to false. When set to true, the user-data is gzipped before being passed to the infrastructure provider.

Example:

apiVersion: bootstrap.cluster.x-k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: RKE2Config
metadata:
  name: my-cluster-bootstrap
spec:
  gzipUserData: true