/var/log/cloud-init-output.log is not present on RHEL 7.5

Question

I've got a custom hardended RHEL 7.5 custom AMI. I want to use user data to complete some deploy time configuration. I've already ensured that /var/lib/cloud/* is removed before I create the AMI.

These are the contents of my user data: echo "My script fired." >> /tmp/test.txt echo "This line should produce an output log."

The file /tmp/test.txt is present, indicating the my script did indeed run. However, the expected result of the second statement is that a file /var/log/cloud-init-output.log should be produced in accordance with the AWS docs. This file is not present.

How do I make sure that user data produces the expected output log file?

Answer 1

It appears that Red Hat felt the file was "completely unnecessary": https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1424612

In order to view user data output, journalctl logs will need to be grepped:

sudo grep cloud-init /var/log/messages