PowerFlex 3.x Add Existing Service causes NTP config change on service which affects the NTP configuration of expansion nodes

Summary: If a Storage only service has more than one NTP server and is removed and re-added in PowerFlex Manager, expansion nodes added in the future will have a different NTP configuration than the original nodes in the service. ...

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Symptoms

If a Storage only service has been removed and re-added to PowerFlex Manager, you may notice the following:
  • The original template that was used to deploy the service has multiple NTP server IP addresses configured in the OS settings.
  • The nodes that were originally deployed have multiple NTP IP addresses in the host NTP configuration.
  • The NTP configuration may look different in the PowerFlex Manager web UI. Follow these steps to verify:
    • Go to the Service Details pane for the service and click the View All Settings button.
    • Expand one of the nodes and then expand the OS Settings for that node.
    • You see only one IP address configured for NTP.
  • If you add nodes to this service and check the local NTP configuration on the host you see only one IP address configured.

Cause

When the Storage only service is re-added to PowerFlex Manager using the Add Existing Service feature, it only detects the first NTP server in the list. Therefore, once a Storage only service is removed and re-added using the Add Existing Service function the service settings will now only show NTP server for all nodes. The NTP configuration file on the existing nodes have the correct entries, but only one NTP entry will get added to any nodes that are added to the service.

Resolution

To ensure the NTP configurations match across all Storage only nodes, you must manually remediate the NTP configuration on expansion nodes after they have been added to the service. You can edit the /etc/ntp.conf file on each node added to include the missing NTP IP addresses.

Affected Products

PowerFlex rack, PowerFlex Appliance
Article Properties
Article Number: 000192821
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 18 Apr 2025
Version:  2
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