Dear Robert,
I am sending you a draft for solving what I consider is a bug:
1) Download Leap 15.5 - Minimal Virtual Machine - Cloud image AMD64
https://get.opensuse.org/leap/15.5/?type=server#download
aeffccb223bae45c5a60dad632b487cfb7cb91ed6518af3ed7d84e1eb3e49dab
openSUSE-Leap-15.5-Minimal-VM.x86_64-Cloud.qcow2
2) Setup a KVM virtual machine based in the downloaded drive with a cloud-init drive. with default user and one specific password ( in this example OpenSuse2023!):
```yaml
#cloud-config
hostname: opensuse-see-if-user-is-created
manage_etc_hosts: true
password: $5$QnrWSOwo$1KtDoVEtEr/YhpmXbbv86aiIHs01Py2U12VnfUlLr82
ssh_authorized_keys:
- ssh-rsa AAAA...NVw== foo@bar
chpasswd:
expire: False
users:
- default
package_upgrade: true
```
3) Start the virtual machine, a system upgrade is going to be created,
4) log in as opensuse user - wait cloud init ends ( in the shell `cloud-init status --wait` )
5) shutdown the VM
6) change the password for the user in the cloud-init drive, ( instance-id in meta-data must be new, password:$5$QnrWSOwo$LFAID334vgbKuy/jIXlllfe79fDvi8U.3iuvTswDiuD is OpenSuse2023!2 password ),
7) start the VM
8) You will have 2 users available: the opensuse one and sles.
Steps 2) to 5) might be part of some automatic template generation ( as packer ).
This problem might be present in other images as EC2 or Azure one.
Let me know if you need further information,

Regards,