Description of problem: cinder-manage ignores --sql_connection parameter and uses some default. Not sure from where, because this option is commented in cinder.conf: [para@virtual-rhel packstack]$ sudo cat /etc/cinder/cinder.conf | grep connection #connection_type=<None> #sql_connection=mysql://cinder:cinder@localhost/cinder #sql_connection_debug=0 I've added "print 'used connection: %s' % FLAGS.sql_connection" to cinder/db/sqlalchemy/session.py:113 and output is following: [para@virtual-rhel packstack]$ sudo cinder-manage --sql_connection=mysql://cinder:66ff39612f704b01.122.71/cinder db sync used connection: mysql://cinder:cinder@localhost/cinder 2013-05-02 11:57:48 10457 WARNING cinder.db.sqlalchemy.session [-] SQL connection failed. 10 attempts left. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): [para@virtual-rhel packstack]$ rpm -qa openstack-cinder openstack-cinder-2012.2.4-3.el6ost.noarch