diff --git a/global/overlay/etc/cosmos/apt/bootstrap-cosmos.sh b/global/overlay/etc/cosmos/apt/bootstrap-cosmos.sh
index 1534dc5..a93de05 100755
--- a/global/overlay/etc/cosmos/apt/bootstrap-cosmos.sh
+++ b/global/overlay/etc/cosmos/apt/bootstrap-cosmos.sh
@@ -21,6 +21,14 @@ if test -z "$cmd_tags"; then
    exit 3
 fi
 
+set -x
+
+
+# cloud-init runs with LANG='US-ASCII' which is likely to fail because of non-US-ASCII chars in the manifest
+export LANG='en_US.UTF-8'
+
+export DEBIAN_FRONTEND='noninteractive'
+
 apt-get -y update
 apt-get -y upgrade
 for pkg in rsync git git-core wget; do
@@ -32,16 +40,40 @@ if ! test -d /var/cache/cosmos/repo; then
     cosmos clone "$cmd_repo"
 fi
 
+# re-run cosmos at reboot until it succeeds - use bash -l to get working proxy settings
+grep -v "^exit 0" /etc/rc.local > /etc/rc.local.new
+(echo ""
+ echo "test -f /etc/run-cosmos-at-boot && (bash -l cosmos -v update; bash -l cosmos -v apply && rm /etc/run-cosmos-at-boot)"
+ echo ""
+ echo "exit 0"
+) >> /etc/rc.local.new
+mv -f /etc/rc.local.new /etc/rc.local
+
+touch /etc/run-cosmos-at-boot
+
 hostname $cmd_hostname
 short=`echo ${cmd_hostname} | awk -F. '{print $1}'`
 echo "127.0.1.1 ${cmd_hostname} ${short}" >> /etc/hosts
 
-perl -pi -e "s,#COSMOS_REPO_MODELS=.*,COSMOS_REPO_MODELS=\"\\\$COSMOS_REPO/global/:\\\$COSMOS_REPO/$cmd_hostname/\"," /etc/cosmos/cosmos.conf
+# Set up cosmos models. They are in the order of most significant first, so we want
+# <host> <group (if it exists)> <global>
+_host_type=`echo $cmd_hostname | cut -d - -f 1`
+models=$(
+    echo -n '\\$COSMOS_REPO/'"$cmd_hostname/:"
+    test -d /var/cache/cosmos/repo/${_host_type}-common && echo -n '\\$COSMOS_REPO/'"${_host_type}-common/:"
+    echo -n '\\$COSMOS_REPO/global/'
+)
+echo "Configuring cosmos with the following models:"
+echo "${models}"
+
+perl -pi -e "s,#COSMOS_REPO_MODELS=.*,COSMOS_REPO_MODELS=\"${models}\"," /etc/cosmos/cosmos.conf
 perl -pi -e "s,#COSMOS_UPDATE_VERIFY_GIT_TAG_PATTERN=.*,COSMOS_UPDATE_VERIFY_GIT_TAG_PATTERN=\"${cmd_tags}*\"," /etc/cosmos/cosmos.conf
 
 env COSMOS_BASE=/var/cache/cosmos COSMOS_KEYS=/var/cache/cosmos/repo/global/overlay/etc/cosmos/keys /var/cache/cosmos/repo/global/post-tasks.d/015cosmos-trust
 
-(date; nohup cosmos -v update && nohup cosmos -v apply; date) 2>&1 | tee /var/log/cosmos.log
+mkdir -p /var/cache/scriptherder
+
+(date; nohup cosmos -v update && nohup cosmos -v apply && rm /etc/run-cosmos-at-boot; date) 2>&1 | tee /var/log/cosmos.log
 
 
 exit 0