diff --git a/global/overlay/etc/cosmos/apt/bootstrap-cosmos.sh b/global/overlay/etc/cosmos/apt/bootstrap-cosmos.sh
index 613b74e..1426904 100755
--- a/global/overlay/etc/cosmos/apt/bootstrap-cosmos.sh
+++ b/global/overlay/etc/cosmos/apt/bootstrap-cosmos.sh
@@ -22,21 +22,69 @@ fi
 
 set -x
 
-apt-get -y install rsync git-core wget
+
+# 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 gpg; do
+   # script is running with "set -e", use "|| true" to allow packages to not
+   # exist without stopping the script
+   apt-get -y install $pkg || true
+done
 dpkg -i cosmos_1.5-1_all.deb
 
 if ! test -d /var/cache/cosmos/repo; then
     cosmos clone "$cmd_repo"
 fi
 
-hostname $cmd_hostname
+# Re-run cosmos at reboot until it succeeds - use bash -l to get working proxy settings.
+# It is possible the file does not exist or contains no matching lines,
+# both cases are OK
+grep -v "^exit 0" /etc/rc.local > /etc/rc.local.new || true
+(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
 
-perl -pi -e "s,#COSMOS_REPO_MODELS=.*,COSMOS_REPO_MODELS=\"\\\$COSMOS_REPO/global/:\\\$COSMOS_REPO/$cmd_hostname/\"," /etc/cosmos/cosmos.conf
+touch /etc/run-cosmos-at-boot
+
+# If this cloud-config is set, it will interfere with our changes to /etc/hosts
+if [ -f /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg ]; then
+    sed -i 's/manage_etc_hosts: true/manage_etc_hosts: false/g' /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg
+fi
+
+# Remove potential $hostname.novalocal line from /etc/hosts, added by cloud-init
+sed -i.bak -e "s/^127\.0\.1\.1 $(hostname)\..*novalocal.*//1" /etc/hosts
+
+hostname $cmd_hostname
+short=`echo ${cmd_hostname} | awk -F. '{print $1}'`
+echo "127.0.1.1 ${cmd_hostname} ${short}" >> /etc/hosts
+
+# 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