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Configuring and tuning orchestration

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Puppet Enterprise 2017.3

  1. Configure the orchestrator and pe-orchestration-services
  2. Configure PXP agent log file location
  3. Correct ARP table overflow

After installing PE, you can change some default settings to further configure the orchestrator and pe-orchestration-services.

Configure the orchestrator and pe-orchestration-services

There are several parameters you can add to configure the behavior of the orchestrator and pe-orchestration-services.

  1. In the console, click Classification, and in the PE Infrastructure group, select the PE Orchestrator group.
  2. On the Configuration tab, locate the puppet_enterprise class indicated and add any of the following parameters and values as needed.
    ParameterValue
    puppet_enterprise::profile::
           master::app_management
    		Disable or enable application management. Set to true or false. Enabled (true) by default.
    puppet_enterprise::profile::
           orchestrator::run_service
    		Disable or enable orchestration services. Set to true or false. Enabled (true) by default.
    puppet_enterprise::profile::agent::pxp_enabled
    		Disable or enable the PXP service. Set to true or false. If you disable this setting you can’t use the orchestrator or the Run Puppet button in the console. Enabled (true) by default.
    puppet_enterprise::profile::
      orchestrator::global_concurrent_compiles
    		An integer that determines how many concurrent compile requests can be outstanding to the master, across all orchestrator jobs. The default value is "8".
    puppet_enterprise::profile::
          orchestrator::pcp_timeout
    		An agent needs to connect to the PCP broker in order to do Puppet runs via the orchestrator. Set an integer to specify how much time should pass before the connection times out.The orchestrator defaults to "30" seconds. If the agent can’t connect to the broker in that time frame, the run will timeout.
    puppet_enterprise::pxp_agent::pxp_logfile
    		A string that represents the path to the PXP agent log file. Change as needed. By default, the log files are located at:

    • *nix: /var/log/puppetlabs/pxp-agent/pxp-agent.log

    • Windows: C:\Program Data\PuppetLabs\pxp-agent\var\log\pxp-agent.log 

    puppet_enterprise::pxp_agent::ping_interval
    		Controls how frequently PXP agents will ping PCP brokers. If the agents don't receive responses, they will attempt to reconnect. Defaults to "120" seconds.
  3. Click Add Parameter as needed, and commit changes.
  4. On the node hosting the master, run Puppet.

Configure PXP agent log file location

Use the PXP agent log file to debug issues with the Puppet orchestrator.

By default the log files are at /var/log/puppetlabs/pxp-agent/pxp-agent.log (on *nix) or C:/ProgramData/PuppetLabs/pxp-agent/var/log/pxp-agent.log (on Windows). You can configure these locations with Hiera.

Add the following parameter to your Hiera configuration:
puppet_enterprise::pxp_agent::pxp_logfile: '<PATH TO LOG FILE>'

Correct ARP table overflow

In larger deployments that use MCollective or the PCP broker, you may encounter ARP table overflows and need to adjust some system settings.

Overflows occur when the ARP table—a local cache of IP address to MAC address resolutions—fills and starts evicting old entries. When frequently used entries are evicted, this can lead to an increase of extra network traffic (increasing CPU load on the broker and network latency) to restore them.

A typical log message will resemble the following:

[[email protected] peadmin]# tail -f /var/log/messages
Aug 10 22:42:36 s1 kernel: Neighbour table overflow.
Aug 10 22:42:36 s1 kernel: Neighbour table overflow.
Aug 10 22:42:36 s1 kernel: Neighbour table overflow.

To work around this issue:

Increase sysctl settings related to ARP tables.
For example, the following settings are appropriate for networks hosting up to 2000 agents:
# Set max table size
net.ipv6.neigh.default.gc_thresh3=4096
net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_thresh3=4096
# Start aggressively clearing the table at this threshold
net.ipv6.neigh.default.gc_thresh2=2048
net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_thresh2=2048
# Don't clear any entries until this threshold
net.ipv6.neigh.default.gc_thresh1=1024
net.ipv4.neigh.default.gc_thresh1=1024
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