Set environment variables using the OpenStack RC file¶

Download and source the OpenStack RC file¶

1. Log in to the dashboard and from the drop-down list select the project for which you want to download the OpenStack RC file.

2. On the Project tab, open the Compute tab and click Access & Security.

3. On the API Access tab, click Download OpenStack RC File and save the file. The filename will be of the form PROJECT-openrc.sh where PROJECT is the name of the project for which you downloaded the file.

4. Copy the PROJECT-openrc.sh file to the computer from which you want to run OpenStack commands.

   For example, copy the file to the computer from which you want to upload an image with a glance client command.

5. On any shell from which you want to run OpenStack commands, source the PROJECT-openrc.sh file for the respective project.

   In the following example, the demo-openrc.sh file is sourced for the demo project:

   $ . demo-openrc.sh
   

6. When you are prompted for an OpenStack password, enter the password for the user who downloaded the PROJECT-openrc.sh file.

Create and source the OpenStack RC file¶

Alternatively, you can create the PROJECT-openrc.sh file from scratch, if you cannot download the file from the dashboard.

1. In a text editor, create a file named PROJECT-openrc.sh and add the following authentication information:

   export OS_USERNAME=username
   export OS_PASSWORD=password
   export OS_TENANT_NAME=projectName
   export OS_AUTH_URL=https://identityHost:portNumber/v2.0
   # The following lines can be omitted
   export OS_TENANT_ID=tenantIDString
   export OS_REGION_NAME=regionName
   export OS_CACERT=/path/to/cacertFile
   

   Warning

   Saving OS_PASSWORD in plain text may bring a security risk. You should protect the file or not save OS_PASSWORD into the file in the production environment.

2. On any shell from which you want to run OpenStack commands, source the PROJECT-openrc.sh file for the respective project. In this example, you source the admin-openrc.sh file for the admin project:

   $ . admin-openrc.sh
   

Override environment variable values¶

When you run OpenStack client commands, you can override some environment variable settings by using the options that are listed at the end of the help output of the various client commands. For example, you can override the OS_PASSWORD setting in the PROJECT-openrc.sh file by specifying a password on a openstack command, as follows:

$ openstack --os-password PASSWORD server list

Where PASSWORD is your password.

A user specifies their username and password credentials to interact with OpenStack, using any client command. These credentials can be specified using various mechanisms, namely, the environment variable or command-line argument. It is not safe to specify the password using either of these methods.

For example, when you specify your password using the command-line client with the --os-password argument, anyone with access to your computer can view it in plain text with the ps field.

To avoid storing the password in plain text, you can prompt for the OpenStack password interactively.