issue2551182 - ... allow loading values from external file. flake8 cleanups Secrets (passwords, secrets) can specify a file using file:// or file:///. The first line of the file is used as the secret. This allows committing config.ini to a VCS. Following settings are changed: [tracker] secret_key [tracker] jwt_secret [rdbms] password [mail] password details: in roundup/configuration.py: Defined SecretMandatoryOptions and SecretNullableOptions. Converted all secret keys and password to one of the above. Also if [mail] username is defined but [mail] password is not it throws an error at load. Cleaned up a couple of methods whose call signature included: def ...(..., settings={}): settings=None and it is set to empty dict inside the method. Also replace exception.message with str(exception) for python3 compatibility. in test/test_config: changed munge_configini to support changing only within a section, replacing keyword text.