Merge "Add a new FAQ entry for dev environments"

doc/source/faq.rst

@@ -18,6 +18,57 @@ production systems.
 Your best choice is probably to choose a `distribution of OpenStack
 <https://www.openstack.org/marketplace/distros/>`__.
 
+Can I use DevStack as a development environment?
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Sure, you can. That said, there are a couple of things you should note before
+doing so:
+
+- DevStack makes a lot of configuration changes to your system and should not
+  be run in your main development environment.
+
+- All the repositories that DevStack clones when deploying are considered
+  volatile by default and thus are subject to hard resets. This is necessary to
+  keep you in sync with the latest upstream, which is what you want in a CI
+  situation, but it can result in branches being overwritten and files being
+  removed.
+
+  The corollary of this is that if you are working on a specific project, using
+  the DevStack project repository (defaulted to ``/opt/stack/<project>``) as
+  the single master repository for storing all your work is not recommended.
+  This behavior can be overridden by setting the ``RECLONE`` config option to
+  ``no``.  Alternatively, you can avoid running ``stack.sh`` to redeploy by
+  restarting services manually. In any case, you should generally ensure work
+  in progress is pushed to Gerrit or otherwise backed up before running
+  ``stack.sh``.
+
+- If you use DevStack within a VM, you may wish to mount a local OpenStack
+  directory, such as ``~/src/openstack``, inside the VM and configure DevStack
+  to use this as the clone location using the ``{PROJECT}_REPO`` config
+  variables. For example, assuming you're using Vagrant and sharing your home
+  directory, you should place the following in ``local.conf``:
+
+  .. code-block:: shell
+
+     NEUTRON_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/neutron
+     NOVA_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/nova
+     KEYSTONE_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/keystone
+     GLANCE_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/glance
+     SWIFT_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/swift
+     HORIZON_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/horizon
+     CINDER_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/cinder
+     HEAT_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/heat
+     TEMPEST_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/tempest
+     HEATCLIENT_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/python-heatclient
+     GLANCECLIENT_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/python-glanceclient
+     NOVACLIENT_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/python-novaclient
+     NEUTRONCLIENT_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/python-neutronclient
+     OPENSTACKCLIENT_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/python-openstackclient
+     HEAT_CFNTOOLS_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/heat-cfntools
+     HEAT_TEMPLATES_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/heat-templates
+     NEUTRON_FWAAS_REPO=/home/vagrant/src/neutron-fwaas
+     # ...
+
 Why a shell script, why not chef/puppet/...
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~