A PE service fails to start after changing and backing up configuration in conf.d in Puppet Enterprise

After changing and backing up PE service configuration files in /etc/puppetlabs/<SERVICE NAME>/conf.d for Puppet Server, PuppetDB, console services, or the orchestrator, including auth.conf, global.conf, metrics.conf, pe-puppetserver.conf, webserver.conf, or webserver.conf, the service fails when started, and you have a duplicate configuration message in the service’s log.

Error messages and logs

For example, in the Puppet Server log (on the primary server at /var/log/puppetlabs/puppetserver/puppetserver.log):

Jun 7 21:44:32 example-0 puppetserver: Duplicate configuration entry: [:authorization :allow-header-cert-info]

At startup, PE services read files with the extensions .conf, .yaml, and .ini , located at /etc/puppetlabs/<SERVICE NAME>/conf.d. Any duplicate setting is treated as a misconfiguration, and the service fails to start.

If a different service is affected, check the log file for that service.

Version and installation information

PE version: All supported

Solution

To fix the issue, if you have duplicate or copied configuration files in a conf.d directory, move them to another location.

To prevent the issue, when you back up or copy configuration files in a conf.d directory, make sure that you do it in a different directory to avoid errors and issues. Make sure that only Puppet-managed files are in conf.d directories.