manila-dist.conf contains no settings. This is used by most services to set a baseline of default options like logdir, state_path, lock_path, auth_strategy, etc. These should likely be added to manila-dist.conf as well.
Does Manila use oslo_config_generator? If so, this should be autogenerated in the packaging process.
I checked upstream in master and it looks like there is support for oslo_config_generator [1]. However, it looks like the only output of it would be the sample manila.conf file. Looks like the manila-dist.conf is not being generated by it. I imagine we could look at how other projects do it and add the same to Manila? [1] - https://github.com/openstack/manila/tree/master/etc/oslo-config-generator
Using the 2016-10-06.1 puddle, I was able to log into a controller node and then look at the /usr/share/manila/manila-dist.conf file which was present and had valid content in it. Looks good to me!
Since the problem described in this bug report should be resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated files, follow the link below. If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report. https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2016-2948.html