File format for nova.conf

Overview

The Compute service supports a large number of configuration options. These options are specified in a configuration file whose default location in /etc/nova/nova.conf.

The configuration file is in INI file format, with options specified as key=value pairs, grouped into sections. Almost all of the configuration options are in the DEFAULT section. Here's a brief example:

[DEFAULT]
debug=true
verbose=true

[trusted_computing]
server=10.3.4.2

Types of configuration options

Each configuration option has an associated type that indicates what values can be set. The supported option types are as follows:

BoolOpt

Boolean option. Value must be either true or false . Example:

debug=false

StrOpt

String option. Value is an arbitrary string. Example:

my_ip=10.0.0.1

IntOption

Integer option. Value must be an integer. Example:

glance_port=9292

MultiStrOpt

String option. Same as StrOpt, except that it can be declared multiple times to indicate multiple values. Example:

ldap_dns_servers=dns1.example.org
ldap_dns_servers=dns2.example.org

ListOpt

List option. Value is a list of arbitrary strings separated by commas. Example:

enabled_apis=ec2,osapi_compute,metadata

FloatOpt

Floating-point option. Value must be a floating-point number. Example:

ram_allocation_ratio=1.5

	Important
	Nova options should not be quoted.

Sections

Configuration options are grouped by section. The Compute config file supports the following sections.

[DEFAULT]: Almost all of the configuration options are organized into this section. If the documentation for a configuration option does not specify its section, assume that it should be placed in this one.
[cells]: The cells section is used for options for configuring cells functionality. See the Cells section of the OpenStack Compute Admin Manual for more details.
[baremetal]: This section is used for options that relate to the baremetal hypervisor driver.
[conductor]: The conductor section is used for options for configuring the nova-conductor service.
[trusted_computing]: The trusted_computing section is used for options that relate to the trusted computing pools functionality. Options in this section describe how to connect to a remote attestation service.

Variable substitution

The configuration file supports variable substitution. Once a configuration option is set, it can be referenced in later configuration values when preceded by $. Consider the following example where my_ip is defined and then $my_ip is used as a variable.

my_ip=10.2.3.4
glance_host=$my_ip
metadata_host=$my_ip

If you need a value to contain the $ symbol, escape it by doing $$. For example, if your LDAP DNS password was $xkj432, you would do:

ldap_dns_password=$$xkj432

The Compute code uses Python's string.Template.safe_substitute() method to implement variable substitution. For more details on how variable substitution is resolved, see Python documentation on template strings and PEP 292.

Whitespace

To include whitespace in a configuration value, use a quoted string. For example:

ldap_dns_passsword='a password with spaces'

Specifying an alternate location for nova.conf

The configuration file is loaded by all of the nova-* services, as well as the nova-manage command-line tool. To specify an alternate location for the configuration file, pass the --config-file /path/to/nova.conf argument when starting a nova-* service or calling nova-manage.

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