Passwords in DevStack Quickstart Guide

[Joe Weirather]

This bug tracker is for errors with the documentation, use the following as a template and remove or add fields as you see fit. Convert [ ] into [x] to check boxes:

- [ ] This doc is inaccurate in this way: ______
- [ ] This is a doc addition request.
- [X] I have a fix to the document that I can paste below including example: input and output.

I believe the quickstart guide for DevStack might need to include a warning about password limitations (special characters) for some of the services in the local.conf file. I'm just suggesting a simple caveat like:

"If you choose to use your own passwords in the local.conf configuration file, please note that some services restrict the use of special characters in passwords. Please see the docs for more info."

Details:

I'm relatively new to OpenStack and wanted to take devstack for a spin. I followed the instructions on this page. I'm in a HIPAA environment and naturally leaned towards a password stronger than "secret", so I configured stronger passwords, which included special characters. I realize this is not what the instructions explicitly say to do, but strong passwords are a best-practice, and I don't think it's a stretch to encourage or rely on their use.

The installation appeared to proceed normally, but when trying to spin up some resources, I discovered that the Cinder service was down. It turned out that it was due to special characters in the password.

Just want to save some others the same grief I went through in troubleshooting.

-----------------------------------
Release: on Sun Jan 21 22:08:24 2018, commit 614cab3
SHA: 614cab33c40159f0bc10d92c9f8dc3f9783708d9
Source: https://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack-dev/devstack/tree/doc/source/index.rst
URL: https://docs.openstack.org/devstack/latest/

[OpenStack Infra (hudson-openstack)]

Fix proposed to branch: master
Review: https://review.openstack.org/588468

[OpenStack Infra (hudson-openstack)]

Change abandoned by Chang Liu (<email address hidden>) on branch: master
Review: https://review.openstack.org/588468
Reason: There is a better solution.

[Martin Kopec (mkopec)]

Not in progress, moving to Confirmed. Not all services accept special characters in the passwords, f.e. for KEYSTONE and HORIZON I've been prompted to set only a password consisting of alphanumeric characters ... a snip from the output:

################################################################################
ENTER A PASSWORD TO USE FOR HORIZON AND KEYSTONE (20 CHARS OR LESS).
################################################################################
This value will be written to /home/centos/devstack/.localrc.password file so you don't have to enter it
again. Use only alphanumeric characters.

[OpenStack Infra (hudson-openstack)]

Fix proposed to branch: master
Review: https://review.opendev.org/c/openstack/devstack/+/860950

[OpenStack Infra (hudson-openstack)]

Reviewed: https://review.opendev.org/c/openstack/devstack/+/860950
Committed: https://opendev.org/openstack/devstack/commit/781fbf47b557d92bcb71e60c535f6249e729637d
Submitter: "Zuul (22348)"
Branch: master

commit 781fbf47b557d92bcb71e60c535f6249e729637d
Author: Dr. Jens Harbott <email address hidden>
Date: Tue Oct 11 15:41:02 2022 +0200

    docs: Add warnings about password selection

    Some services fail when using special characters in passwords, add some
    warnings to our docs.

    Closes-Bug: 1744985
    Change-Id: I601149e2e7362507b38f01719f7197385a27e0a8