This directory is an example of a 'seed' directory. copying these files inside an instance's /var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud or /var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud-net will cause the 'DataSourceNoCloud' and 'DataSourceNoCloudNet' modules to enable and read the given data. The directory must have both files. - user-data: This is the user data, as would be consumed from ec2's metadata service see examples in doc/examples. - meta-data: This file is yaml formated data similar to what is in the ec2 metadata service under meta-data/. See the example, or, on an ec2 instance, run: python -c 'import boto.utils, yaml; print( yaml.dump(boto.utils.get_instance_metadata()))'