Comment 2 for bug 2046877

Thanks for reporting this issue.
what deployment tool do you use? Is it a manual install?

I see 2 potential issues in this story:

1. we don't mention heartbeat_key in the installation guide

There was a proposal for a new guide for centos that also specifies that heartbeat_key should be set in the ubuntu guide but it's still in review
https://review.opendev.org/c/openstack/octavia/+/784022

2. when heartbeat_key is not set, the amphora agent and the services have different behaviors.

when heartbeat_key is not set, the value is None, but:
- the amphora agent signs the data with a "None" key (note the double quote, it's a string)
- the health-manager verifies the data with a None key (not a string)

we could either ensure that a None key is handled in the same way on both sides, or we could add a big warning in the HM when the key is not set.