# ec2 module user-data?

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/ec2-module-user-data/14317>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [January 10, 2014, 10:01pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ec2-module-user-data/14317 "2014-01-10T22:01:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nirik](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/nirik/32/686_2.png) [@nirik](https://forum.ansible.com/u/nirik)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 10:01pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ec2-module-user-data/14317/1 "2014-01-10T22:01:00Z")

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Greetings.

I find myself wanting to pass some user\_data to a call to the ec2  
module, but I am unclear on the format I should be passing it.

Basically I want to pass it:

#cloud-config  
disable\_root: 0

When I call the ec2 module, what exactly do I give user\_data= ?

I tried various formats of a var with the above in it with no luck at  
all.

Any help appreciated. 😉

kevin

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**Author:** ![David\_Peterka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/91b2a8/32.png) [@David\_Peterka](https://forum.ansible.com/u/David_Peterka)\
**Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 4:26am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ec2-module-user-data/14317/2 "2014-02-01T04:26:43Z")

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Do like this:

user\_data"#!/bin/bash\nsleep 10"

you can pass python style \n newlines.

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**Author:** ![nirik](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/nirik/32/686_2.png) [@nirik](https://forum.ansible.com/u/nirik)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2014, 6:27pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ec2-module-user-data/14317/3 "2014-02-02T18:27:21Z")

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Well, one of the things I tried was:

user\_data="#cloud-config\ndisable\_root: 0"

But that didn't seem to get to the instance either. ;(

kevin