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feat: Enable NTP on iDRAC, and stop using Ironic's verify_bmc_clock - #2316

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cardoe merged 1 commit into
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ntp-on-idrac
Sep 8, 2026
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feat: Enable NTP on iDRAC, and stop using Ironic's verify_bmc_clock#2316
cardoe merged 1 commit into
mainfrom
ntp-on-idrac

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@stevekeay

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We need proper time syncronisation on the iDRAC for:

(1) SSL connections made by the iDRAC to download firmware updates (2) When using SSO/DEX authentication

Here we choose NTP as the way to sync the time.

The IPA image has a clock-step functionality but it does not always work, and when it fails it causes IPA to fail altogether.

When NTP is enabled, the time-of-day redfish route becomes read-only and IPA will fail 100% of the time - these two methods are mutually exclusive, so we disable the IPA's clock-setting mechanism.

We might want to proactively update the drac configurations. This could be done quite cheaply with some kind of one-liner like:

export NTP_SERVER_IPV4_ADDR_1=10.4.91.240 # note: varies per data center
export NTP_SERVER_IPV4_ADDR_2=10.4.91.241 # note: varies per data center

uv run python -c "from understack_workflows import bmc, bmc_settings; print(bmc_settings.update_dell_drac_settings(bmc.bmc_for_ip_address('$drac_ip')))"

We need proper time syncronisation on the iDRAC for:

(1) SSL connections made by the iDRAC to download firmware updates
(2) When using SSO/DEX authentication

Here we choose NTP as the way to sync the time.

The IPA image has a clock-step functionality but it does not always
work, and when it fails it causes IPA to fail altogether.

When NTP is enabled, the time-of-day redfish route becomes read-only and
IPA will fail 100% of the time - these two methods are mutually
exclusive, so we disable the IPA's clock-setting mechanism.
@stevekeay stevekeay changed the title feat!: Enable NTP on iDRAC, and stop using Ironic's verify_bmc_clock feat: Enable NTP on iDRAC, and stop using Ironic's verify_bmc_clock Sep 8, 2026
@cardoe
cardoe enabled auto-merge September 8, 2026 21:01
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cardoe disabled auto-merge September 8, 2026 21:02
@cardoe
cardoe added this pull request to the merge queue Sep 8, 2026
Merged via the queue into main with commit 6b41d6c Sep 8, 2026
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@cardoe
cardoe deleted the ntp-on-idrac branch September 8, 2026 21:03
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2 participants