diff --git a/nixos/kubeadm/bootstrap/controller.py b/nixos/kubeadm/bootstrap/controller.py
index 0faf76e..7912ea5 100755
--- a/nixos/kubeadm/bootstrap/controller.py
+++ b/nixos/kubeadm/bootstrap/controller.py
@@ -145,7 +145,13 @@ class Controller:
                     f"({attempt}/{self.ssh_ready_retries})"
                 )
                 time.sleep(self.ssh_ready_delay)
-        raise RuntimeError(f"Unable to authenticate to {ip} with users: {', '.join(self.ssh_candidates)}")
+        raise RuntimeError(
+            "Unable to authenticate to "
+            f"{ip} with users: {', '.join(self.ssh_candidates)}. "
+            "If this is a freshly cloned VM, the Proxmox source template likely does not yet include the "
+            "current cloud-init-capable NixOS template configuration from nixos/template-base. "
+            "Terraform can only clone what exists in Proxmox; it cannot retrofit cloud-init support into an old template."
+        )
 
     def remote(self, ip, cmd, check=True):
         ordered = [self.active_ssh_user] + [u for u in self.ssh_candidates if u != self.active_ssh_user]