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On Wed, 2012-08-01 at 15:40 -0400, Lorin Hochstein wrote:
> From the python-novaclient tests, it looks like  "nova reset-state
> <instance>" puts an instance into the error state or (with the
> --active) flag into the active state:

That is correct.

> What's the use case for resetting an instance to the error state? Is
> the idea to do:
> 
> 
> nova reset-state <instance>
> nova delete <instance>

Yes.  At the time, it was not possible to delete an instance that had
its task_state set to a non-None value.  A subsequent patch I
contributed fixed that behavior, however; the problem was that
compute_api.delete() and compute_api.soft_delete() had divergent state
requirements, where the former was allowed from any state (the desired
behavior) and the latter only allowed from vm_state ACTIVE, ERROR, or
one other (I forget what it was) and task_state None.

The reset-state API is one of the admin_actions extension, by the way;
the goal of that default configuration was to prevent gratuitous state
changes while still allowing administrators to help users who were
having problems deleting instances.
-- 
Kevin L. Mitchell <kevin.mitchell at rackspace.com>