How to Access Information about a Droplet using the Metadata API

DigitalOcean Droplets are Linux-based virtual machines (VMs) that run on top of virtualized hardware. Each Droplet you create is a new server you can use, either standalone or as part of a larger, cloud-based infrastructure.

Metadata is a DigitalOcean service that allows a Droplet to access data about itself.

DigitalOcean Metadata API Docs

The metadata API allows a Droplet to access information about itself including user data, Droplet ID, datacenter region, and IP addresses.

Droplets can access the metadata service using the special, static, link-local IP address 169.254.169.254. This allows you to use the same commands on different Droplets without needing to change the destination IP address.

Access Droplet Metadata

You can query the metadata API from a Droplet by sending an HTTP GET request to a metadata endpoint. For example, this curl command sends an HTTP GET request to the top level of a Droplet’s metadata endpoint, /metadata/v1/:

curl http://169.254.169.254/metadata/v1/interfaces/public/0/ipv4/address

This returns an index of the available Droplet metadata:

id
hostname
user-data
vendor-data
public-keys
region
interfaces/
dns/
floating_ip/
tags/

You can think of this index like a directory listing. Items in the index without a trailing slash represent data, and items with a trailing slash are nested indexes. You can further curl into the indexes to see more entries.

For example, you can retrieve the Droplet’s public IPv4 address:

curl -s http://169.254.169.254/metadata/v1/interfaces/public/0/ipv4/address

Full documentation of the metadata service and its endpoints are available in the Droplet metadata API reference.