I would suggest that the Ubuntu Server Live installer ISO is not the image a customer would want to be cloning on VMWare as the live installers isn't currently intended for that type of use-case.
That said I think we can come to a couple of short-term solutions that "work around" this case:
1. recommending that customers using VMWare use standard ubuntu cloud images from https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/ which leave cloud-init active.
2. customers interested in "cloning" ubuntu live server images need to do the following before cloning the image to ensure new OVF datasource is detected
* rm /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/subiquity-disable-cloudinit-networking.cfg
* sudo cloud-init clean --logs
Cloud-init typically caches the datasource type it originally discovered. On Server Live installers and Ubuntu Jammy Desktop installer case, that datasource is "None" due to config in /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/99-installer.cfg. If that datasource cache (/var/lib/cloud/instance/obj.pkl) still exists across reboot cloud-init happily reuses that datasource and will not try to detect others such as OVF. This why I think `sudo cloud-init clean --logs` is needed. Without it, those cloned images will always reboot and reuse the None datasource cache and cannot transition to detect OVF config.
I would suggest that the Ubuntu Server Live installer ISO is not the image a customer would want to be cloning on VMWare as the live installers isn't currently intended for that type of use-case.
That said I think we can come to a couple of short-term solutions that "work around" this case:
1. recommending that customers using VMWare use standard ubuntu cloud images from https:/ /cloud- images. ubuntu. com/ which leave cloud-init active.
2. customers interested in "cloning" ubuntu live server images need to do the following before cloning the image to ensure new OVF datasource is detected cloud.cfg. d/subiquity- disable- cloudinit- networking. cfg
* rm /etc/cloud/
* sudo cloud-init clean --logs
Cloud-init typically caches the datasource type it originally discovered. On Server Live installers and Ubuntu Jammy Desktop installer case, that datasource is "None" due to config in /etc/cloud/ cloud.cfg. d/99-installer. cfg. If that datasource cache (/var/lib/ cloud/instance/ obj.pkl) still exists across reboot cloud-init happily reuses that datasource and will not try to detect others such as OVF. This why I think `sudo cloud-init clean --logs` is needed. Without it, those cloned images will always reboot and reuse the None datasource cache and cannot transition to detect OVF config.