Managing NTP with PE
The clocks on your servers need to synchronize with something to let them know what the right time is. NTP is a protocol that synchronizes computer clocks over a network to within a millisecond, using Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Follow this guide to get time synced across all your PE-managed nodes.
Your entire datacenter, from the network to the applications, depends on accurate time for many different things, such as security services, certificate validation, and file sharing across nodes.
NTP is one of the most crucial, yet easy, services to configure and
manage with Puppet Enterprise. Using the Puppet ntp
module, you can:
- Ensure time is correctly synced across all the servers in your infrastructure.
- Ensure time is correctly synced across your configuration management tools.
- Roll out updates quickly if you need to change or specify your own internal NTP server pool.
The ntp
module is
supported, tested, and maintained by Puppet. You can learn more about the module by
visiting the related topic about the ntp module on the Puppet Forge.
The ntp
module
contains several classes. Classes are named chunks of Puppet code and are the primary
means by which Puppet Enterprise configures nodes. The ntp
module contains several classes, but the only class that
you use is the ntp
class. This class
includes several other private classes that are for the module's internal use only.
Related topics:
- Puppet Supported modules
- The
ntp
module on the Puppet Forge - About classes in Puppet
NTP overview
To get started managing NTP across your infrastructure,
install the Puppet ntp
module and then
manage it in the console.
To manage your NTP service, complete the following tasks:
- Install the
ntp
module. - Create an NTP node group
- Add the ntp class from the module to your agent nodes in the PE console.
- View changes to your infrastructure in the PE console Events page.
- Edit parameters of the main NTP class.
These instructions assume you have installed PE. Refer to the installation overview and the agent installation instructions for complete instructions. See the supported operating system documentation for supported platforms. This guide assumes you are not using Code Manager or r10k.
About module directories
By default, Puppet keeps modules in /etc/puppetlabs/code/environments/production/modules
.
This includes modules that you download from the Forge and those you write
yourself.
PE also creates two other module directories: /opt/puppetlabs/puppet/modules
and /etc/puppetlabs/staging-code/modules
. For this
guide, don't modify or add anything to either of these directories.
There are plenty of resources about modules and the creation of modules that you can reference.
Related topics:
- Puppet: Module fundamentals.
- Puppet: The modulepath.
- The Beginner's guide to modules.
- The Puppet Forge.
Install the NTP module
Install the puppetlabs-ntp
module, which helps manage your NTP service.
puppet module install
puppetlabs-ntp
You should see output similar to the following:
Preparing to install into /etc/puppetlabs/code/environments/production/modules ...
Notice: Downloading from http://forgeapi.puppetlabs.com ...
Notice: Installing -- do not interrupt ...
/etc/puppetlabs/code/environments/production/modules
└── puppetlabs-ntp (v3.1.2)
ntp
module. You must wait a short time for
the Puppet server to refresh before the classes are available to add to your agent
nodes.Add the ntp
class
from the module
Using the PE console, you add the module's ntp
class to a node group that you create,
called NTP, which contains all of your nodes. Depending on
your needs or infrastructure, you might have a different group that you assign NTP to, but
these same instructions apply.
Create the NTP node group
The role of a classification node group is to assign classification data, such as classes, parameters, and variables, to nodes .
This rule "dynamically" pins all nodes to the NTP group. Note that this rule is for testing purposes and that decisions about pinning nodes to groups in a production environment vary from user to user.
Add the ntp
class
to the NTP group
Node groups contain classes and other elements.
Success! Puppet Enterprise is now managing NTP on
the nodes in the NTP group. So, for example, if
you forget to restart the NTP service on one of those nodes after running ntpdate
, PE automatically restarts it
on the next Puppet run.
View ntp changes in the PE console
You can view and research infrastructure changes and events
on the console's Events page. After applying the ntp
class, check the Events page to confirm that changes were indeed made to your
infrastructure.
Note that in the summary pane on the left, one event, a successful
change, has been recorded for Nodes: with events. However, there are two changes for
Classes: with events and Resources: with events. This is because the ntp
class loaded from the ntp
module contains additional classes---a class that handles
the configuration of NTP (Ntp::Config
)
and a class that handles the NTP service (Ntp::Service
).
-
Click Intentional changes in the Classes: with events summary view. The main
pane shows you that the
Ntp::Config
andNtp::Service
classes were successfully added when you ran PE after adding the mainntp
class. - Navigate through further levels to see more data.
If you continue to navigate down, you end up at a run summary that
shows you the details of the event. For example, you can see exactly which piece of
Puppet code was responsible for generating the event. In this case, it was line 15 of
the service.pp
manifest and line 21 of
the config.pp
manifest from the puppetlabs-ntp
module.
If there had been a problem applying this class, this information would tell you exactly which piece of code you need to fix. In this case, the Events page lets you confirm that PE is now managing NTP.
In the upper right corner of the detail pane is a link to a run report, which contains information about the Puppet run that made the change, including logs and metrics about the run. See Infrastructure reports for more information.
For more information about using the Events page, see Working with the Events page.
Edit parameters of the ntp class
You can edit or add class parameters in the PE console without needing to edit the module code directly.
The NTP module, by default, uses public NTP servers. But what if your
infrastructure runs an internal pool of NTP servers? You can change the server parameter
of the ntp
class in a few steps using
the PE console.
This triggers a Puppet run that causes Puppet Enterprise to create the new configuration.
Puppet Enterprise now uses the NTP server you specified for that node.
Learning more about Puppet and the ntp
module
You can learn more about Puppet and Puppet supported modules.
For more information about working with the Puppet ntp
module, check out our puppetlabs-ntp: A Puppet
Enterprise supported module blog post.
Puppet offers many opportunities for learning and training, from formal certification courses to guided online lessons. Head over to the Learning page to discover more.