Configuring Java arguments for Puppet Enterprise

Puppet Enterprise — 2018.1.16

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You might need to increase the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) memory allocated to Java services or ActiveMQ to improve performance in your Puppet Enterprise (PE) deployment.

Important: When you enable high availability, you must use Hiera or pe.conf only — not the console — to specify configuration parameters. Using pe.conf or Hiera ensures that configuration is applied to both your master and replica.

Increase the Java heap size for PE Java services

The Java heap size is the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) memory allocated to Java services in Puppet Enterprise (PE). You can use any configuration method you choose. We will use the console to change the Java heap size for console services, Puppet Server, orchestration services, or PuppetDB in the examples below.

Note: Ensure that you have sufficient free memory before increasing the memory that is used by a service. The increases shown below are only examples.

In the console, click Classification. In the PE Infrastructure node group, select the appropriate node group.


Service	Node group	Class
pe-console-services	PE Console	`puppet_enterprise::profile::console`
Puppet Server	PE Master	`puppet_enterprise::profile::master`
pe-orchestration-services	PE Orchestrator	`puppet_enterprise::profile::orchestrator`
PuppetDB	PE PuppetDB	`puppet_enterprise::profile::puppetdb`
ActiveMQ	PE ActiveMQ Broker	`puppet_enterprise::profile::amq::broker`

Click Configuration and scroll down to the appropriate class.

Click the Parameter name list and select java_args. Increase the heap size by replacing the parameter with the appropriate JSON string.


Service	Default heap size	New heap size	JSON string
pe-console-services	256 MB	512 MB	`{"Xmx": "512m", "Xms": "512m"}`
Puppet Server	2 GB	4 GB	`{"Xmx": "4096m", "Xms": "4096m"}`
orchestration-services	192 MB	1000 MB	`{"Xmx": "1000m", "Xms": "1000m"}`
PuppetDB	256 MB	512 MB	`{"Xmx": "512m", "Xms": "512m"}`
ActiveMQ	512 MB	1024 MB	`{"Xmx": "1024m", "Xms": "1024m"}`

Click Add Parameter and then commit changes.

Run Puppet on the appropriate nodes to apply the change. If you're running it on the console node, the console will be unavailable briefly while pe-console-services restarts.


Service	Node
pe-console-services	console
Puppet Server	master and compile masters
pe-orchestration-services	master
PuppetDB	PuppetDB

Increase ActiveMQ heap usage (master only)

ActiveMQ uses a default heap size of 512MB, but you can increase this as needed.

512MB is the best value for mid-sized deployments, but can be a problem when building small proof-of-concept deployments on memory-starved VMs.

Note: Ensure that you have sufficient free memory before increasing the memory that is used by ActiveMQ. The increase shown below is only an example.

In the console, click Nodes > Classification, and in the PE Infrastructure node group, select the PE ActiveMQ Broker group.
Click Configuration and locate the puppet_enterprise::profile::amq::broker class.
Click the Parameter name list, select heap_mb, and in the value field, enter 1024.
Click Add Parameter, and commit changes.
On the command line on the master, run puppet agent -t to start a Puppet run and apply the change.

Disable Java garbage collection logging

Java garbage collection logs can be useful when diagnosing performance issues with JVM-based PE services. Garbage collection logs are enabled by default, and the results are captured in the support script, but you can disable them.

Disable garbage collection logging by editing your Hiera default .yaml file. Add any of the following parameters as needed:

puppet_enterprise::console_services::enable_gc_logging: false
puppet_enterprise::master::puppetserver::enable_gc_logging: false
puppet_enterprise::profile::orchestrator::enable_gc_logging: false
puppet_enterprise::puppetdb::enable_gc_logging: false
puppet_enterprise::profile::amq::broker::enable_gc_logging: false