cloud-init.service has no timeout

This bug was originally filed in Launchpad as [LP: #1841631](https://bugs.launchpad.net/cloud-init/+bug/1841631)

Launchpad details

affected_projects = []

assignee = None

assignee_name = None

date_closed = None

date_created = 2019-08-27T16:36:51.273562+00:00

date_fix_committed = None

date_fix_released = None

id = 1841631

importance = low

is_complete = False

lp_url = https://bugs.launchpad.net/cloud-init/+bug/1841631

milestone = None

owner = paride

owner_name = Paride Legovini

private = False

status = triaged

submitter = paride

submitter_name = Paride Legovini

tags = []

duplicates = []

_Launchpad user **Paride Legovini(paride)** wrote on 2019-08-27T16:36:51.273562+00:00_

cloud-init's systemd service file (cloud-init.service) currently has not timeout; it explicitly sets:

TimeoutSec=0

which, while not explicitly documented in systemd-service(5), appears to disable the timeout logic. This may cause the boot process to get stuck, while the system could possibly reach a useful state even if cloud-init failed.

We hit this on a headless server: cloud-init got stuck and this prevented systemd to reach the point where systemd-getty-generator would have spawned a getty on the serial line, allowing the server to be accessed remotely. As a result we've got locked out of the server, which had to re rebooted in single-user mode. A cloud-init timeout would have prevented this.