fuelmenu NTP settings prevent me from proceeding

[Mike Scherbakov]

ISO #200 4.0RC

When I configure IP addresses, and do not have Internet access from Fuel master node, fuelmenu doesn't allow me to Save & Quit. See screenshots.

It complains on NTP settings - fuelmenu can't verify it without Internet connectivity. By design, I can have no Internet connectivity at the configuration time, so fuelmenu should give just a warning if it can't verify validity of NTP servers - not the error.

Also, such a long timeouts during applying might be caused by attempts to do DNS lookups. Logs are attached.

[Mike Scherbakov (mihgen)]

Also, changes take much more than 20 sec to save - "Applying changes .. " is shown, and it takes 2-3 minutes to respond.

[Matthew Mosesohn (raytrac3r)]

This is not a bug. It's working exactly as intended. Applying changes takes a long time because internet connection attempts fail, along with DHCP checks (which need a window or else they don't work).

[Mike Scherbakov (mihgen)]

I do not agree on closing this as Invalid.
Please do a simple experiments on setting up params when you don't have Internet connectivity. Along with timeout for minutes, not seconds (which is already doesn't look like an experience I want to have as a user), it also totally fails to save settings under certain conditions..

[Mike Scherbakov (mihgen)]

Please take a look: https://bugs.launchpad.net/fuel/+bug/1270147. Not only me who got stuck on it. It is high priority thing to fix.
We can discuss this in ML to further clarify reasons why we need to fix this, or we can keep the discussion here.

[Matthew Mosesohn (raytrac3r)]

An appropriate solution to the NTP issue (and other services that require internet access) would be:
1 - add checkbox for enable NTP in NTP tab
2 - check for default gateway and dns resolution.
3 - if true, enable NTP checkbox, if false, disable NTP and add a warning to the user that NTP won't be available for your cluster and may lead to problems with many services. Warning won't be a popup, but will just be text on NTP Tab. Also, the 3 NTP server fields get marked read-only
4 - Modify check function for NTP -> unchecked ntp box always passes and ignores any values and writes no NTP conf to astute.yaml
checked NTP box enforces exactly the same as it does in Fuel 4.0. If it's checked and server can't be reached, it's marked as unsaveable.

[Matthew Mosesohn (raytrac3r)]

Code review:
https://review.openstack.org/68670

This is the only solution that will please everyone:
It should be simpler to be able to start using
Fuel with no gateway or DNS. Therefore, NTP
will default to disabled with no valid gateway
configured. In most deployments, except those
in automated tests where dhcp_interface option
is provided in kernel options, NTP will be
disabled until the user re-enables it after
configuring their gateway.

[Mike Scherbakov (mihgen)]

> NTP will be disabled
what do you mean disabled? I'm fine if it won't sync with upstream sources, but it is mandatory to get daemon running and serving all slave nodes, so the whole OpenStack environment will be in sync.

[Igor Shishkin (teran)]

Verified. Settings saved fine even if no internet connection available. ntpd is running after deployment is done.

[Igor Shishkin (teran)]

PS. Verified on

{
"astute_sha":
"581643fb9ace27282150fa3951660a9796acb867",
"build_id":
"2014-02-19_12-19-41",
"build_number":
"162",
"fuellib_sha":
"8f5fc7f397646933ffba3acab8bb665756caa58b",
"fuelmain_sha":
"0b9ba969d1cff3d9de78d9feb4fb0f4539fc74de",
"mirantis":
"no",
"nailgun_sha":
"a3fedc45a4f74418a5d56efa5f8170a55ce53d9a",
"ostf_sha":
"f86abe5544b5ffcf621e0c450bca15737c92361f",
"release":
"4.1"
}

[Mike Scherbakov (mihgen)]

This is still an issue for me on latest ISO #180, "nailgun_sha": "f786786894acc331a4b53b31f33e373ef95ccdfc".

I configure only Network Setup, and PXE Setup, and leave all other values by default. My expectation, as a user, is simple - if I finally click save and quit, I can be notified that NTP servers unreachable at the moment. And fuelmenu asks me what to do - go back and modify settings, or proceed further with quiting and installation of the rest, as network might not be configured yet.

Current behavior is to show error which refers to NTP/DNS issues (and it's true, I don't have connectivity yet). So I go to NTP settings, and the only option I could find is to disable NTP. I have no clue that there is a special hack in DNS submenu to prevent something on NTP side.

Finally, with NTP set to disabled, Fuel master node was deployed with ntpd service running.

Is it possible to implement the scenario I put here in second paragraph or there are some other technical issues which make this impossible or very hard to do?

[Matthew Mosesohn (raytrac3r)]

Mike, the NTP error clearly says it cannot sync NTP because it can't reach the server, and that it may be caused by network settings or DNS settings. If you have no gateway configured, NTP is off. That's the hack that makes our users happier about running closed tests. If you have a gateway, you better have both internet access and a DNS server.

[OpenStack Infra (hudson-openstack)]

Fix proposed to branch: master
Review: https://review.openstack.org/75901

[OpenStack Infra (hudson-openstack)]

Reviewed: https://review.openstack.org/75901
Committed: https://git.openstack.org/cgit/stackforge/fuel-web/commit/?id=787fcfa255066fca016372a6a81ed75c10e1ea39
Submitter: Jenkins
Branch: master

commit 787fcfa255066fca016372a6a81ed75c10e1ea39
Author: Matthew Mosesohn <email address hidden>
Date: Mon Feb 24 19:07:06 2014 +0400

    Treat NTP connection errors as warnings in Fuel Menu

    Change-Id: Id09e855588fa1b25b108d36ce4f38080ae6bebec
    Closes-Bug: #1263934

[Nastya Urlapova (aurlapova)]

{
build_id: "2014-02-26_00-30-27",
mirantis: "yes",
build_number: "208",
nailgun_sha: "ea08cef3e06a72f47cfaa8cd8fe6d034e2cf722e",
ostf_sha: "8e6681b6d06c7cb20a84c1cc740d5f2492fb9d85",
fuelmain_sha: "7939e28a5b3ab65361991e2bc22a792c7561cf87",
astute_sha: "10cccc87f2ee35510e43c8fa19d2bf916ca1fced",
release: "4.1",
fuellib_sha: "0a2e5bdc01c1e3bb285acb7b39125101e950ac72"
}