Install Linux¶

Start with a clean and minimal install of a Linux system. DevStack attempts to support the two latest LTS releases of Ubuntu, Rocky Linux 9 and openEuler.

If you do not have a preference, Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble) is the most tested, and will probably go the smoothest.

Add Stack User (optional)¶

DevStack should be run as a non-root user with sudo enabled (standard logins to cloud images such as “ubuntu” or “cloud-user” are usually fine).

If you are not using a cloud image, you can create a separate stack user to run DevStack with

$ sudo useradd -s /bin/bash -d /opt/stack -m stack

Ensure home directory for the stack user has executable permission for all, as RHEL based distros create it with 700 and Ubuntu 21.04+ with 750 which can cause issues during deployment.

$ sudo chmod +x /opt/stack

Since this user will be making many changes to your system, it should have sudo privileges:

$ echo "stack ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" | sudo tee /etc/sudoers.d/stack
$ sudo -u stack -i

Download DevStack¶

$ git clone https://opendev.org/openstack/devstack
$ cd devstack

The devstack repo contains a script that installs OpenStack and templates for configuration files.

Create a local.conf¶

Create a local.conf file with four passwords preset at the root of the devstack git repo.

[[local|localrc]]
ADMIN_PASSWORD=secret
DATABASE_PASSWORD=$ADMIN_PASSWORD
RABBIT_PASSWORD=$ADMIN_PASSWORD
SERVICE_PASSWORD=$ADMIN_PASSWORD

This is the minimum required config to get started with DevStack.

Start the install¶

$ ./stack.sh

This will take 15 - 30 minutes, largely depending on the speed of your internet connection. Many git trees and packages will be installed during this process.

Profit!¶

You now have a working DevStack! Congrats!

Your devstack will have installed keystone, glance, nova, placement, cinder, neutron, and horizon. Floating IPs will be available, guests have access to the external world.

You can access horizon to experience the web interface to OpenStack, and manage vms, networks, volumes, and images from there.

You can source openrc in your shell, and then use the openstack command line tool to manage your devstack.

You can create a VM and SSH into it.

You can cd /opt/stack/tempest and run tempest tests that have been configured to work with your devstack.

You can make code changes to OpenStack and validate them.

Going further¶

Learn more about our configuration system to customize devstack for your needs. Including making adjustments to the default networking.

Read guides for specific setups people have (note: guides are point in time contributions, and may not always be kept up to date to the latest devstack).

Enable devstack plugins to support additional services, features, and configuration not present in base devstack.

Use devstack in your CI with Ansible roles and Jobs for Zuul V3. Migrate your devstack Zuul V2 jobs to Zuul V3 with this full migration how-to.

Get the big picture of what we are trying to do with devstack, and help us by contributing to the project.

If you are a new contributor to devstack please refer: So You Want to Contribute…