Ephemeral boot should allow console and ssh login

[Mark Shuttleworth]

I have a machine which is failing to inventory itself properly. It PXE boots, and cloud-init runs, but I can't see where it gets stuck. Plugging in a monitor I see the kernel log on tty1 and and then tty7/8 gets cloud-init output, finishing with a ci-info presenting the tables of routes and NICs, but at that point activity stops.

It would be helpful to have a mechanism like D-I, where pressing enter on a tty spawns a root shell prompt. Alternatively, to have MAAS pass SSH credentials to cloud-init, so one could log in remotely and inspect progress.

[Christian Reis (kiko)]

Isn't it somewhat dangerous to give a user root on any machine that is registered in MAAS? I'm thinking compromise firmware, install spamware and take advantage of firmware, write to disks, etc.

I guess if this is a) SSH keys for the admin only and maybe b) physical/local console only then it would be acceptable. James?

[Christian Reis (kiko)]

I meant "take advantage of networking and firewall pass-throughs"

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

We'll introduce RBAC to say who can get the machine at all. But if they
can get it, then they can get it ephemerally too.

Mark

[Adam Collard (adam-collard)]

Thanks for the feedback and feature request, we have added this to our backlog for prioritisation in the future - PF-3651