question Re: HDF3 install via blueprint, NiFi fails to start due to "Password expected" at decrypting flow.xml.gz in Archives of Support Questions (Read Only)

HDF3 install via blueprint, NiFi fails to start due to "Password expected" at decrypting flow.xml.gz

geko — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 12:21:43 GMT

Hi,

I am setting up HDF3.0 via Blueprint where installation of services works nice, but starting NiFi fails because it expects a password being provided for decrypting flow.xml.gz under /nifi directory (calling the encrypt-config tool).

Two questions here:

1.) which properties needs to be provided in the blueprint so that NiFi starts successfully without being asked for a password....which obviously cannot be provided

2.) from where does NiFi at startup time populate the subdirectories under /nifi ? Before re-deploying the blueprint I deleted whole /nifi directory just to ensure the main error is not caused by some old/previous files, but at starting up Nifi this folder gets recreated incl. subdirectories.

Any other hint to get the services startup also being successfull at applying the blueprint highly appreciated 😉

Re: HDF3 install via blueprint, NiFi fails to start due to "Password expected" at decrypting flow.xml.gz

aanghel — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 03:58:28 GMT

Hi @Gerd Koenig

NiFi needs two configuration passwords, nifi.security.encrypt.configuration.password and nifi.sensitive.props.key. You can pass those using the nifi-ambari-config in the blueprint. The passwords also need to be at least 12 characters in length.

Here's a simple blueprint that normally works for me:

{
  "configurations" : [
    {
      "nifi-ambari-config" : {
        "nifi.node.ssl.port": "9091",
        "nifi.node.port": "9090",
        "nifi.security.encrypt.configuration.password": "AsdQwe123456",
        "nifi.sensitive.props.key": "AsdQwe123456"
      }
    },
    {
      "nifi-env" : {
        "nifi_group" : "nifi",
        "nifi_user" : "nifi"
      }
    }
  ],
  "host_groups" : [
    {
      "name" : "mytestcluster-singlenode",
      "configurations" : [ ],
      "components" : [
        { "name" : "ZOOKEEPER_CLIENT" },
        { "name" : "INFRA_SOLR_CLIENT" },
        { "name" : "ZOOKEEPER_SERVER" },
        { "name" : "NIFI_MASTER" },
        { "name" : "AMBARI_SERVER" },
        { "name" : "INFRA_SOLR" },
        { "name" : "METRICS_COLLECTOR" },
        { "name" : "METRICS_GRAFANA" },
        { "name" : "METRICS_MONITOR" }
        
      ]
    }
  ],
  "Blueprints" : {
    "stack_name" : "HDF",
    "stack_version" : "3.0"
  }
}

Regarding the folders, yes, NiFi will recreate them based on the configuration variables. These can also be set in the blueprint:

    {
      "nifi-ambari-config" : {
          "nifi.internal.dir" : "/var/lib/nifi",
          "nifi.content.repository.dir.default" : "/var/lib/nifi/content_repository",
          "nifi.state.dir" : "{nifi_internal_dir}/state/local",
          "nifi.flow.config.dir" : "{nifi_internal_dir}/conf",
          "nifi.config.dir" : "{nifi_install_dir}/conf",
          "nifi.flowfile.repository.dir" : "/var/lib/nifi/flowfile_repository",
          "nifi.provenance.repository.dir.default" : "/var/lib/nifi/provenance_repository",
          "nifi.database.dir" : "/var/lib/nifi/database_repository"
      }
    },

Re: HDF3 install via blueprint, NiFi fails to start due to "Password expected" at decrypting flow.xml.gz

geko — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 22:00:05 GMT

Hello @Alexandru Anghel ,

many thanks....works brilliant !