Default configuration file is nova-compute.conf

[Wilson Horstmeyer Bogado]

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:

- [x] This doc is inaccurate in this way: Default configuration file is nova-compute.conf
- [ ] This is a doc addition request.
- [ ] I have a fix to the document that I can paste below including example: input and output.

-----------------------------------
Release: 16.0.5.dev29 on 2018-01-13 01:04
SHA: b535f0808526c8eba37f15e83cede536e4e06029
Source: https://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack/nova/tree/doc/source/install/compute-install-ubuntu.rst
URL: https://docs.openstack.org/nova/pike/install/compute-install-ubuntu.html

The pike installation guide instructs to edit /etc/nova/nova.conf when configuring a compute node.
As can be seen from the status report:

# service nova-compute status
● nova-compute.service - OpenStack Compute
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nova-compute.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Sun 2018-01-14 18:19:35 -02; 9min ago
  Process: 58916 ExecStartPre=/bin/chown nova:adm /var/log/nova (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 58912 ExecStartPre=/bin/chown nova:nova /var/lock/nova /var/lib/nova (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 58907 ExecStartPre=/bin/mkdir -p /var/lock/nova /var/log/nova /var/lib/nova (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 58921 (nova-compute)
    Tasks: 23
   Memory: 153.7M
      CPU: 28.363s
   CGroup: /system.slice/nova-compute.service
           ├─58921 /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/nova-compute --config-file=/etc/nova/nova.conf --config-file=/etc/nova/nova-compute.conf --log-file=/var/log/nova/nova-compute.log
           └─58977 /usr/bin/python2.7 /usr/bin/privsep-helper --config-file /etc/nova/nova.conf --config-file /etc/nova/nova-compute.conf --privsep_context vif_plug_linux_bridge.privsep.vif_plug --privsep_sock_path /tmp/tmpMlZAbC/privsep.sock

the default file is /etc/nova/nova-compute.conf

The guide need to be updated.

[Matt Riedemann (mriedem)]

Well, to be fair, it's listing two config files:

CGroup: /system.slice/nova-compute.service
           ├─58921 /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/nova-compute --config-file=/etc/nova/nova.conf --config-file=/etc/nova/nova-compute.conf --log-file=/var/log/nova/nova-compute.log
           └─58977 /usr/bin/python2.7 /usr/bin/privsep-helper --config-file /etc/nova/nova.conf --config-file /etc/nova/nova-compute.conf

so it's using both "--config-file=/etc/nova/nova.conf --config-file=/etc/nova/nova-compute.conf"; I'm not sure what the contents of either file is though, since both shouldn't be necessary.

[Wilson Horstmeyer Bogado (whbogado)]

You are right. Maybe this is a result of upgrading from Newton to Pike, which I did.
Since placement is mandatory in Pike I updated nova.conf then I always found placement authentication errors in the logs saying that user/password were invalid.

When I realized that there was the nova-compute.conf file I placed the placement options in that file and it started working as expected.

So I assume that the correct file is nova-compute.conf or maybe the settings in nova-compute.conf override the settings in nova.conf since it is listed after nova.conf.

[Matt Riedemann (mriedem)]

I'm not sure what the behavior is in oslo.config if you have multiple config files, I assumed it would merge them.

[Sylvain Bauza (sylvain-bauza)]

Well, it's for Ubuntu packaging, right?
The problem I see is that the upstream documentation provides Ubuntu installation too, so it really depends on the package versions :(

Putting it Confirmed given it would be modified by the nova repository, but I think it's more a strategic issue about how the Ubuntu community is different from the Nova one.