List of Template Variables

Here is a list of all the keys that a call to Bootscript.generate will check for, and how they affect the gem's behavior.

Main settings

:platform - when set to :unix (default), the gem produces a Bash script as output. When set to :windows, the gem produces Powershell wrapped in a Batch script.
:startup_command - The command to be executed after the archive is extracted. If Chef support is enabled (by setting chef_validation_pem), this value defaults to a platform-specific command that invokes the built-in Chef support. Otherwise, it defaults to nil, and no startup command is executed. In either case, it can be overridden.
:update_os - If true, will attempt to upgrade all the operating system packages. Defaults to false. (Debian/Ubuntu only for now.)
:add_script_tags - (Windows only.) When set to true, encloses the output in <SCRIPT>...</SCRIPT> XML tags, usually required for AWS.

The Chef-based examples in the README illustrate the included Chef support.

:chef_validation_pem - When set to any non-nil value, enables the built-in Chef support. The value must be the key data itself, so read it into memory first.
:chef_databag_secret - The secret used to decrypt the Chef org's encrypted data bag items.
:chef_attributes - a Hash of Chef attributes that is read as node[chef_client][config] by the Opscode chef-client cookbook. This is where you specify your node_name (if desired), chef_server_url, validation_client_name, etc. Always use strings for chef attribute keys, not symbols!

:create_ramdisk - Setting this to true generates a bootscript that creates a RAMdisk of a configurable size and at a configurable filesystem location. This happens even before the archive is unpacked, so you can extract files into the RAMdisk.
:ramdisk_mount - The filesystem location where the RAMdisk is mounted. (defaults to false)
:ramdisk_size - Size, in Megabytes, of the RAMdisk. (defaults to 20)