When deploying a system via Cloud-init and Userdata, in VMware, the root password set on the deployed system is the same as the root password of the VM template.

Say,

• Root password in VM template is password@123

• When creating the system, I mentioned my root password as qwerty@123 and then submitted the system build.

• Once the system comes up, It will still have the root password set as password@123 but NOT what we expected it to be i.e. qwerty@123

We do change it for other type of deployments i.e. via templates Kickstart Default Finish or Kickstart Default Userdata but not for Cloud init default e.g.

# grep root_pass app/views/unattended/provisioning_templates/user_data/kickstart_default_user_data.erb -B3 -A1

<%# Cloud instances frequently have incorrect hosts data %>
<%= snippet 'fix_hosts' %>

<% if @host.provision_method == 'image' && root_pass.present? -%>
# Install the root password
echo 'root:<%= root_pass -%>' | /usr/sbin/chpasswd -e
<% end -%>