# User Data

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/user-data/30599>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** azure, aws\
**Created:** [June 19, 2019, 12:07pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/user-data/30599 "2019-06-19T12:07:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jayant\_Kaushal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayant\_Kaushal](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Jayant_Kaushal)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 12:07pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/user-data/30599/1 "2019-06-19T12:07:45Z")

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I am looking at using user\_data during my aws/azure provisioning,  
looking at the APIs, i am able to pass a script and execute it.  
is the user data wrapped in cdata sections automatically, would complex scripts be valid with out cdata ?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dick\_Visser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d9b06d/32.png) [@Dick\_Visser](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Dick_Visser)\
**Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 6:55am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/user-data/30599/2 "2019-06-20T06:55:10Z")

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No, user data is base64 encoded by the ansible modules.

Any limitations are defined by the cloud provider, for instance  
[https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-instance-metadata.html#instancedata-add-user-data](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-instance-metadata.html#instancedata-add-user-data)

What do you mean by “complex scripts”?

I don’t see what CDATA sections have to do with this? As that’s an XML specific construct and XML isn’t involved?

Dick