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Application Introspection and Debugging
Once your application is running, you'll inevitably need to debug problems with it.
Earlier we described how you can use kubectl get pods to retrieve simple status information about
your pods. But there are a number of ways to get even more information about your application.
Using kubectl describe pod to fetch details about pods
For this example we'll use a Deployment to create two pods, similar to the earlier example.
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: nginx-deployment
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app: nginx
replicas: 2
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: nginx
spec:
containers:
- name: nginx
image: nginx
resources:
limits:
memory: "128Mi"
cpu: "500m"
ports:
- containerPort: 80
Create deployment by running following command:
kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/application/nginx-with-request.yaml
deployment.apps/nginx-deployment created
Check pod status by following command:
kubectl get pods
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
nginx-deployment-1006230814-6winp 1/1 Running 0 11s
nginx-deployment-1006230814-fmgu3 1/1 Running 0 11s
We can retrieve a lot more information about each of these pods using kubectl describe pod. For example:
kubectl describe pod nginx-deployment-1006230814-6winp
Name: nginx-deployment-1006230814-6winp
Namespace: default
Node: kubernetes-node-wul5/10.240.0.9
Start Time: Thu, 24 Mar 2016 01:39:49 +0000
Labels: app=nginx,pod-template-hash=1006230814
Annotations: kubernetes.io/created-by={"kind":"SerializedReference","apiVersion":"v1","reference":{"kind":"ReplicaSet","namespace":"default","name":"nginx-deployment-1956810328","uid":"14e607e7-8ba1-11e7-b5cb-fa16" ...
Status: Running
IP: 10.244.0.6
Controllers: ReplicaSet/nginx-deployment-1006230814
Containers:
nginx:
Container ID: docker://90315cc9f513c724e9957a4788d3e625a078de84750f244a40f97ae355eb1149
Image: nginx
Image ID: docker://6f62f48c4e55d700cf3eb1b5e33fa051802986b77b874cc351cce539e5163707
Port: 80/TCP
QoS Tier:
cpu: Guaranteed
memory: Guaranteed
Limits:
cpu: 500m
memory: 128Mi
Requests:
memory: 128Mi
cpu: 500m
State: Running
Started: Thu, 24 Mar 2016 01:39:51 +0000
Ready: True
Restart Count: 0
Environment: <none>
Mounts:
/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount from default-token-5kdvl (ro)
Conditions:
Type Status
Initialized True
Ready True
PodScheduled True
Volumes:
default-token-4bcbi:
Type: Secret (a volume populated by a Secret)
SecretName: default-token-4bcbi
Optional: false
QoS Class: Guaranteed
Node-Selectors: <none>
Tolerations: <none>
Events:
FirstSeen LastSeen Count From SubobjectPath Type Reason Message
--------- -------- ----- ---- ------------- -------- ------ -------
54s 54s 1 {default-scheduler } Normal Scheduled Successfully assigned nginx-deployment-1006230814-6winp to kubernetes-node-wul5
54s 54s 1 {kubelet kubernetes-node-wul5} spec.containers{nginx} Normal Pulling pulling image "nginx"
53s 53s 1 {kubelet kubernetes-node-wul5} spec.containers{nginx} Normal Pulled Successfully pulled image "nginx"
53s 53s 1 {kubelet kubernetes-node-wul5} spec.containers{nginx} Normal Created Created container with docker id 90315cc9f513
53s 53s 1 {kubelet kubernetes-node-wul5} spec.containers{nginx} Normal Started Started container with docker id 90315cc9f513
Here you can see configuration information about the container(s) and Pod (labels, resource requirements, etc.), as well as status information about the container(s) and Pod (state, readiness, restart count, events, etc.).
The container state is one of Waiting, Running, or Terminated. Depending on the state, additional information will be provided -- here you can see that for a container in Running state, the system tells you when the container started.
Ready tells you whether the container passed its last readiness probe. (In this case, the container does not have a readiness probe configured; the container is assumed to be ready if no readiness probe is configured.)
Restart Count tells you how many times the container has been restarted; this information can be useful for detecting crash loops in containers that are configured with a restart policy of 'always.'
Currently the only Condition associated with a Pod is the binary Ready condition, which indicates that the pod is able to service requests and should be added to the load balancing pools of all matching services.
Lastly, you see a log of recent events related to your Pod. The system compresses multiple identical events by indicating the first and last time it was seen and the number of times it was seen. "From" indicates the component that is logging the event, "SubobjectPath" tells you which object (e.g. container within the pod) is being referred to, and "Reason" and "Message" tell you what happened.
Example: debugging Pending Pods
A common scenario that you can detect using events is when you've created a Pod that won't fit on any node. For example, the Pod might request more resources than are free on any node, or it might specify a label selector that doesn't match any nodes. Let's say we created the previous Deployment with 5 replicas (instead of 2) and requesting 600 millicores instead of 500, on a four-node cluster where each (virtual) machine has 1 CPU. In that case one of the Pods will not be able to schedule. (Note that because of the cluster addon pods such as fluentd, skydns, etc., that run on each node, if we requested 1000 millicores then none of the Pods would be able to schedule.)
kubectl get pods
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
nginx-deployment-1006230814-6winp 1/1 Running 0 7m
nginx-deployment-1006230814-fmgu3 1/1 Running 0 7m
nginx-deployment-1370807587-6ekbw 1/1 Running 0 1m
nginx-deployment-1370807587-fg172 0/1 Pending 0 1m
nginx-deployment-1370807587-fz9sd 0/1 Pending 0 1m
To find out why the nginx-deployment-1370807587-fz9sd pod is not running, we can use kubectl describe pod on the pending Pod and look at its events:
kubectl describe pod nginx-deployment-1370807587-fz9sd
Name: nginx-deployment-1370807587-fz9sd
Namespace: default
Node: /
Labels: app=nginx,pod-template-hash=1370807587
Status: Pending
IP:
Controllers: ReplicaSet/nginx-deployment-1370807587
Containers:
nginx:
Image: nginx
Port: 80/TCP
QoS Tier:
memory: Guaranteed
cpu: Guaranteed
Limits:
cpu: 1
memory: 128Mi
Requests:
cpu: 1
memory: 128Mi
Environment Variables:
Volumes:
default-token-4bcbi:
Type: Secret (a volume populated by a Secret)
SecretName: default-token-4bcbi
Events:
FirstSeen LastSeen Count From SubobjectPath Type Reason Message
--------- -------- ----- ---- ------------- -------- ------ -------
1m 48s 7 {default-scheduler } Warning FailedScheduling pod (nginx-deployment-1370807587-fz9sd) failed to fit in any node
fit failure on node (kubernetes-node-6ta5): Node didn't have enough resource: CPU, requested: 1000, used: 1420, capacity: 2000
fit failure on node (kubernetes-node-wul5): Node didn't have enough resource: CPU, requested: 1000, used: 1100, capacity: 2000
Here you can see the event generated by the scheduler saying that the Pod failed to schedule for reason FailedScheduling (and possibly others). The message tells us that there were not enough resources for the Pod on any of the nodes.
To correct this situation, you can use kubectl scale to update your Deployment to specify four or fewer replicas. (Or you could leave the one Pod pending, which is harmless.)
Events such as the ones you saw at the end of kubectl describe pod are persisted in etcd and provide high-level information on what is happening in the cluster. To list all events you can use
kubectl get events
but you have to remember that events are namespaced. This means that if you're interested in events for some namespaced object (e.g. what happened with Pods in namespace my-namespace) you need to explicitly provide a namespace to the command:
kubectl get events --namespace=my-namespace
To see events from all namespaces, you can use the --all-namespaces argument.
In addition to kubectl describe pod, another way to get extra information about a pod (beyond what is provided by kubectl get pod) is to pass the -o yaml output format flag to kubectl get pod. This will give you, in YAML format, even more information than kubectl describe pod--essentially all of the information the system has about the Pod. Here you will see things like annotations (which are key-value metadata without the label restrictions, that is used internally by Kubernetes system components), restart policy, ports, and volumes.
kubectl get pod nginx-deployment-1006230814-6winp -o yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
annotations:
kubernetes.io/created-by: |
{"kind":"SerializedReference","apiVersion":"v1","reference":{"kind":"ReplicaSet","namespace":"default","name":"nginx-deployment-1006230814","uid":"4c84c175-f161-11e5-9a78-42010af00005","apiVersion":"extensions","resourceVersion":"133434"}}
creationTimestamp: 2016-03-24T01:39:50Z
generateName: nginx-deployment-1006230814-
labels:
app: nginx
pod-template-hash: "1006230814"
name: nginx-deployment-1006230814-6winp
namespace: default
resourceVersion: "133447"
uid: 4c879808-f161-11e5-9a78-42010af00005
spec:
containers:
- image: nginx
imagePullPolicy: Always
name: nginx
ports:
- containerPort: 80
protocol: TCP
resources:
limits:
cpu: 500m
memory: 128Mi
requests:
cpu: 500m
memory: 128Mi
terminationMessagePath: /dev/termination-log
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount
name: default-token-4bcbi
readOnly: true
dnsPolicy: ClusterFirst
nodeName: kubernetes-node-wul5
restartPolicy: Always
securityContext: {}
serviceAccount: default
serviceAccountName: default
terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 30
volumes:
- name: default-token-4bcbi
secret:
secretName: default-token-4bcbi
status:
conditions:
- lastProbeTime: null
lastTransitionTime: 2016-03-24T01:39:51Z
status: "True"
type: Ready
containerStatuses:
- containerID: docker://90315cc9f513c724e9957a4788d3e625a078de84750f244a40f97ae355eb1149
image: nginx
imageID: docker://6f62f48c4e55d700cf3eb1b5e33fa051802986b77b874cc351cce539e5163707
lastState: {}
name: nginx
ready: true
restartCount: 0
state:
running:
startedAt: 2016-03-24T01:39:51Z
hostIP: 10.240.0.9
phase: Running
podIP: 10.244.0.6
startTime: 2016-03-24T01:39:49Z
Example: debugging a down/unreachable node
Sometimes when debugging it can be useful to look at the status of a node -- for example, because you've noticed strange behavior of a Pod that's running on the node, or to find out why a Pod won't schedule onto the node. As with Pods, you can use kubectl describe node and kubectl get node -o yaml to retrieve detailed information about nodes. For example, here's what you'll see if a node is down (disconnected from the network, or kubelet dies and won't restart, etc.). Notice the events that show the node is NotReady, and also notice that the pods are no longer running (they are evicted after five minutes of NotReady status).
kubectl get nodes
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
kubernetes-node-861h NotReady <none> 1h v1.13.0
kubernetes-node-bols Ready <none> 1h v1.13.0
kubernetes-node-st6x Ready <none> 1h v1.13.0
kubernetes-node-unaj Ready <none> 1h v1.13.0
kubectl describe node kubernetes-node-861h
Name: kubernetes-node-861h
Role
Labels: kubernetes.io/arch=amd64
kubernetes.io/os=linux
kubernetes.io/hostname=kubernetes-node-861h
Annotations: node.alpha.kubernetes.io/ttl=0
volumes.kubernetes.io/controller-managed-attach-detach=true
Taints: <none>
CreationTimestamp: Mon, 04 Sep 2017 17:13:23 +0800
Phase:
Conditions:
Type Status LastHeartbeatTime LastTransitionTime Reason Message
---- ------ ----------------- ------------------ ------ -------
OutOfDisk Unknown Fri, 08 Sep 2017 16:04:28 +0800 Fri, 08 Sep 2017 16:20:58 +0800 NodeStatusUnknown Kubelet stopped posting node status.
MemoryPressure Unknown Fri, 08 Sep 2017 16:04:28 +0800 Fri, 08 Sep 2017 16:20:58 +0800 NodeStatusUnknown Kubelet stopped posting node status.
DiskPressure Unknown Fri, 08 Sep 2017 16:04:28 +0800 Fri, 08 Sep 2017 16:20:58 +0800 NodeStatusUnknown Kubelet stopped posting node status.
Ready Unknown Fri, 08 Sep 2017 16:04:28 +0800 Fri, 08 Sep 2017 16:20:58 +0800 NodeStatusUnknown Kubelet stopped posting node status.
Addresses: 10.240.115.55,104.197.0.26
Capacity:
cpu: 2
hugePages: 0
memory: 4046788Ki
pods: 110
Allocatable:
cpu: 1500m
hugePages: 0
memory: 1479263Ki
pods: 110
System Info:
Machine ID: 8e025a21a4254e11b028584d9d8b12c4
System UUID: 349075D1-D169-4F25-9F2A-E886850C47E3
Boot ID: 5cd18b37-c5bd-4658-94e0-e436d3f110e0
Kernel Version: 4.4.0-31-generic
OS Image: Debian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie)
Operating System: linux
Architecture: amd64
Container Runtime Version: docker://1.12.5
Kubelet Version: v1.6.9+a3d1dfa6f4335
Kube-Proxy Version: v1.6.9+a3d1dfa6f4335
ExternalID: 15233045891481496305
Non-terminated Pods: (9 in total)
Namespace Name CPU Requests CPU Limits Memory Requests Memory Limits
--------- ---- ------------ ---------- --------------- -------------
......
Allocated resources:
(Total limits may be over 100 percent, i.e., overcommitted.)
CPU Requests CPU Limits Memory Requests Memory Limits
------------ ---------- --------------- -------------
900m (60%) 2200m (146%) 1009286400 (66%) 5681286400 (375%)
Events: <none>
kubectl get node kubernetes-node-861h -o yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Node
metadata:
creationTimestamp: 2015-07-10T21:32:29Z
labels:
kubernetes.io/hostname: kubernetes-node-861h
name: kubernetes-node-861h
resourceVersion: "757"
uid: 2a69374e-274b-11e5-a234-42010af0d969
spec:
externalID: "15233045891481496305"
podCIDR: 10.244.0.0/24
providerID: gce://striped-torus-760/us-central1-b/kubernetes-node-861h
status:
addresses:
- address: 10.240.115.55
type: InternalIP
- address: 104.197.0.26
type: ExternalIP
capacity:
cpu: "1"
memory: 3800808Ki
pods: "100"
conditions:
- lastHeartbeatTime: 2015-07-10T21:34:32Z
lastTransitionTime: 2015-07-10T21:35:15Z
reason: Kubelet stopped posting node status.
status: Unknown
type: Ready
nodeInfo:
bootID: 4e316776-b40d-4f78-a4ea-ab0d73390897
containerRuntimeVersion: docker://Unknown
kernelVersion: 3.16.0-0.bpo.4-amd64
kubeProxyVersion: v0.21.1-185-gffc5a86098dc01
kubeletVersion: v0.21.1-185-gffc5a86098dc01
machineID: ""
osImage: Debian GNU/Linux 7 (wheezy)
systemUUID: ABE5F6B4-D44B-108B-C46A-24CCE16C8B6E
What's next
Learn about additional debugging tools, including: