Cloud-init nocloud never requesting network-config

[tkshark]

I am not sure if i am hitting a bug or missing something incredibly simple.

So i have tried both via http:// and file://
config used in /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/

datasource:
NoCloud:
seedfrom: http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/cloudConfig/

datasource:
NoCloud:
seedfrom: file:///cloudConfig/

On the latest Alma and Arch "generic cloud" images the config works great. This is a rough idea of how i am copying the images

wipefs --all /dev/nvme0n1

qemu-img convert -p -O raw "ubn.qcow" "/dev/nvme0n1"
sgdisk -e /dev/nvme0n1
partprobe /dev/nvme0n1

mkdir /mnt/os
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/os
#p3 for arch
#p4 for alama
#p1 debian

cp 90-shark.cfg /mnt/os/etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/
sudo umount /mnt/os
sudo sync

Then just reboot

And in my http server i see something like this on arch and alam
[06/May/2026:20:53:45 +0000] "GET /cloudConfig/network-config HTTP/1.1" 200 458 "-" "Cloud-Init/26.1"
[06/May/2026:20:53:45 +0000] "GET /cloudConfig/meta-data HTTP/1.1" 200 61 "-" "Cloud-Init/26.1"
[06/May/2026:20:53:45 +0000] "GET /cloudConfig/user-data HTTP/1.1" 200 257 "-" "Cloud-Init/26.1"
[06/May/2026:20:53:45 +0000] "GET /cloudConfig/vendor-data HTTP/1.1" 200 13 "-" "Cloud-Init/26.1"

Now with debian and ubuntu I see something like this
where is dosen't event try to read the network-config file.
There are no 404 logged or other connection during this time
[25/Apr/2026:04:17:42 +0000] "GET /cloudConfig/meta-data HTTP/1.1" 200 123 "-" "Cloud-Init/25.1.4-0ubuntu024.04.1"
[25/Apr/2026:04:17:42 +0000] "GET /cloudConfig/user-data HTTP/1.1" 200 257 "-" "Cloud-Init/25.1.4-0ubuntu024.04.1"
[25/Apr/2026:04:17:42 +0000] "GET /cloudConfig/vendor-data HTTP/1.1" 200 13 "-" "Cloud-Init/25.1.4-0ubuntu024.04.1"

From ubuntu server also confirming its not requesting it.
26-05-07 23:47:45,119 - sources[DEBUG]: Detected DataSourceNoCloudNet
2026-05-07 23:47:45,119 - dmi.py[DEBUG]: querying dmi data /sys/class/dmi/id/product_serial
2026-05-07 23:47:45,119 - util.py[DEBUG]: Reading from /var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud/user-data (quiet=False)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,119 - util.py[DEBUG]: Reading from /var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud/meta-data (quiet=False)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,119 - util.py[DEBUG]: Reading from /var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud/vendor-data (quiet=False)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,119 - util.py[DEBUG]: Reading from /var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud/network-config (quiet=False)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,119 - util.py[DEBUG]: Reading from /var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud-net/user-data (quiet=False)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,120 - util.py[DEBUG]: Reading from /var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud-net/meta-data (quiet=False)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,120 - util.py[DEBUG]: Reading from /var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud-net/vendor-data (quiet=False)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,120 - util.py[DEBUG]: Reading from /var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud-net/network-config (quiet=False)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,120 - subp.py[DEBUG]: Running command ['blkid', '-tTYPE=vfat', '-odevice'] with allowed return codes [0, 2] (shell=False, capture=True)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,127 - subp.py[DEBUG]: Running command ['blkid', '-tTYPE=iso9660', '-odevice'] with allowed return codes [0, 2] (shell=False, capture=True)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,130 - subp.py[DEBUG]: Running command ['blkid', '-tLABEL=CIDATA', '-odevice'] with allowed return codes [0, 2] (shell=False, capture=True)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,134 - subp.py[DEBUG]: Running command ['blkid', '-tLABEL=cidata', '-odevice'] with allowed return codes [0, 2] (shell=False, capture=True)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,138 - subp.py[DEBUG]: Running command ['blkid', '-tLABEL_FATBOOT=cidata', '-odevice'] with allowed return codes [0, 2] (shell=False, capture=True)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,141 - url_helper.py[DEBUG]: [0/11] open 'http:// /cloudConfig/meta-data' with {'url': 'http:// /cloudConfig/meta-data', 'stream': False, 'allow_redirects': True, 'method': 'GET', 'headers': {'User-Agent': 'Cloud-I>
2026-05-07 23:47:45,144 - url_helper.py[DEBUG]: Read from http:// /cloudConfig/meta-data (200, 59b) after 1 attempts
2026-05-07 23:47:45,144 - util.py[DEBUG]: Attempting to load yaml from string of length 59 with allowed root types (<class 'dict'>,)
2026-05-07 23:47:45,145 - url_helper.py[DEBUG]: [0/11] open 'http:// /cloudConfig/user-data' with {'url': 'http:// /cloudConfig/user-data', 'stream': False, 'allow_redirects': True, 'method': 'GET', 'headers': {'User-Agent': 'Cloud-I>
2026-05-07 23:47:45,146 - url_helper.py[DEBUG]: Read from http:// /cloudConfig/user-data (200, 320b) after 1 attempts
2026-05-07 23:47:45,147 - url_helper.py[DEBUG]: [0/11] open 'http:// /cloudConfig/vendor-data' with {'url': 'http:// /cloudConfig/vendor-data', 'stream': False, 'allow_redirects': True, 'method': 'GET', 'headers': {'User-Agent': 'Clo>
2026-05-07 23:47:45,148 - url_helper.py[DEBUG]: Read from http:// /cloudConfig/vendor-data (200, 13b) after 1 attempts
2026-05-07 23:47:45,148 - DataSourceNoCloud.py[DEBUG]: Using seeded cache data from http:// /cloudConfig/
2026-05-07 23:47:45,149 - util.py[DEBUG]: Writing to /run/cloud-init/cloud-id-nocloud - wb: [644] 8 bytes
2026-05-07 23:47:45,150 - util.py[DEBUG]: Creating symbolic link from '/run/cloud-init/cloud-id' => '/run/cloud-init/cloud-id-nocloud'
2026-05-07 23:47:45,150 - atomic_helper.py[DEBUG]: Atomically writing to file /run/cloud-init/instance-data-sensitive.json (via temporary file /run/cloud-init/tmp4bcbqw5m) - w: [600] 8320 bytes/chars
2026-05-07 23:47:45,151 - atomic_helper.py[DEBUG]: Atomically writing to file /run/cloud-init/instance-data.json (via temporary file /run/cloud-init/tmpil4wfm2j) - w: [644] 1655 bytes/chars

I also tried to use file://cloudConfig and copyed the config into the directory and it does the exact same thing and skips the network-config on Ubuntu and Debian but alma and arch again work with out an issue.

Also theses same images work prefect on proxmox and openstack across the board, so i think it has to be a nocloud issue

So any ideas, what to poke next because i am kinda burned out on this. Because all i see online is about setting dsmode and a bunch of other things that seam outdated or don't apply anymore.

[holmanb]

Please read the docs about how to file a bug.

[CanReader]

Your config is fine. Ubuntu's cloud-init package on noble and jammy has a patch that removes the network-config fetch from seedfrom:
https://github.com/canonical/cloud-init/blob/ubuntu/noble/debian/patches/no-nocloud-network.patch

So it only asks for meta-data, user-data and vendor-data, same as your log. Upstream added the network-config fetch in 24.3, that's why Alma and Arch on 26.1 work. Debian 12 ships cloud-init 22.4.2 so it's not there at all.

Since you already copy 90-shark.cfg into the image, you can put the network config in the same file under a network: key. System config wins over the datasource anyway (https://docs.cloud-init.io/en/latest/reference/network-config.html), so it should work on all four distros:

datasource:
  NoCloud:
    seedfrom: http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/cloudConfig/

network:
  version: 2
  ethernets:
    eth0:
      match:
        macaddress: "xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx"
      dhcp4: false
      addresses: [192.168.1.50/24]
      routes:
        - to: default
          via: 192.168.1.1
      nameservers:
        addresses: [1.1.1.1]

Just put in what you have in your network-config file now.