Open Stack

Lorin Hochstein wrote:
> I wanted to discuss the usability of the paste config files from an
> operator's point of view. The paste config files are opaque to
> administrators who are trying to stand an OpenStack cloud for the first
> time, since they expose a lot of implementation details about the
> middleware. I can follow the instructions in the Install and Deploy
> guide, but I have no idea what the options I don't edit are, and if the
> documentation has deviated from the implementation, I'm pretty much stuck.
> [...]

This was mentioned in the "Making configuration easier" session on the
DevOps track at the last design summit. You can find the notes at:

http://etherpad.openstack.org/FolsomMakingConfigurationEasier

In particular, it was identified that paste configs were evil, failing
to properly separate service/code configuration from end-user configuration.

> Assuming that the *-paste.ini files always need to be there, is there some way we could avoid requiring admins to edit these files, and instead make it more like editing the .conf files? For example, could the paste.ini files be generated from the corresponding .conf file as needed?

I would not assume that *-paste.ini files always need to be there...
Paste is a pain point if we are to support Python 3 one day, so it's
also on the black list of the (still inexistant) OpenStack Python3
advocacy group.

So I'd rather investigate a solution that solves our two problems,
rather than adding a layer on top of the current broken solution... That
said I'm not really a specialist of Paste alternatives.

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)
Release Manager, OpenStack