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+.. _cloud-init:
+
+###############
+VyOS cloud-init
+###############
+
+Cloud instances of VyOS are initialized using the industry-standard cloud-init. 
+Via cloud-init, users can execute shell commands and configure the router.
+
+The initialization is guided by a set of instructions--known as user 
+data--provided by the user at launch time. VyOS implements a user-data
+format called cloud-config.
+
+Major cloud providers offer a means of providing user-data at the time
+of instance launch. Typically the user includes user-data as plain
+text and the cloud provider's platform base64 encodes the user-data
+before injecting it into the instance. 
+
+
+************************
+cloud-config file format
+************************
+
+
+A cloud-config document is written in YAML. The file must begin
+with "#cloud-config". The key used to designate a VyOS configuration
+is "vyos_config_commands". What follows is VyOS configuration using
+the "set-style" syntax.
+
+Commands requirements:
+
+* one command per line
+* if command ends in a value, it must be inside single quotes
+* a single-quote symbol is not allowed inside command or value
+
+
+The commands list produced by the `show configuration commands` command on a
+VyOS router should comply with all the requirements, so it is easy to get a 
+proper commands list by copying it from another router.
+
+The configuration specified in the cloud-config document is merged with
+the default configuration and saved to /config/config.boot.
+
+Here is an example cloud-config.
+
+.. code-block:: yaml
+
+   #cloud-config
+   vyos_config_commands:
+     - set system host-name 'vyos-prod-ashburn'
+     - set system ntp server 1.pool.ntp.org
+     - set system ntp server 2.pool.ntp.org
+
+***************
+Troubleshooting
+***************
+
+If you encounter problems, verify that the cloud-config document contains
+valid YAML. Online resources such as https://yamlvalidator.com/ provide
+a simple tool for validating YAML.
+
+cloud-init logs to /var/log/cloud-init.log. This file can be helpful in
+determining why the configuration varies from what you expect.
+