[kubernetes] How to debug when Kubernetes nodes are in 'Not Ready' state

I initialized the master node and add 2 worker nodes, but only master and one of the worker node show up when I run the following command:

kubectl get nodes

also, both these nodes are in 'Not Ready' state. What are the steps should I take to understand what the problem could be?

• I can ping all the nodes from each of the other nodes.
• The version of Kubernetes is 1.8.
• OS is Cent OS 7

• I used the following repo to install Kubernetes:

  cat <<EOF > /etc/yum.repos.d/kubernetes.repo
  [kubernetes] name=Kubernetes
  baseurl=http://yum.kubernetes.io/repos/kubernetes-el7-x86_64
  enabled=1
  gpgcheck=0
  repo_gpgcheck=0
  EOF
  
  yum install kubelet kubeadm kubectl kubernetes-cni
  

I found applying the network and rebooting both the nodes did the trick for me.

kubectl apply -f [podnetwork].yaml

Steps to debug:-

In case you face any issue in kubernetes, first step is to check if kubernetes self applications are running fine or not.

Command to check:- kubectl get pods -n kube-system

If you see any pod is crashing, check it's logs

if getting NotReady state error, verify network pod logs.

if not able to resolve with above, follow below steps:-

1. kubectl get nodes # Check which node is not in ready state

2. kubectl describe node nodename #nodename which is not in readystate

3. ssh to that node

4. execute systemctl status kubelet # Make sure kubelet is running

5. systemctl status docker # Make sure docker service is running

6. journalctl -u kubelet # To Check logs in depth

Most probably you will get to know about error here, After fixing it reset kubelet with below commands:-

6. systemctl daemon-reload
7. systemctl restart kubelet

In case you still didn't get the root cause, check below things:-

8. Make sure your node has enough space and memory. Check for /var directory space especially. command to check: -df -kh, free -m

9. Verify cpu utilization with top command. and make sure any process is not taking an unexpected memory.

I was having similar issue because of a different reason:

Error:

cord@node1:~$ kubectl get nodes
NAME    STATUS     ROLES    AGE     VERSION
node1   Ready      master   17h     v1.13.5
node2   Ready      <none>   17h     v1.13.5
node3   NotReady   <none>   9m48s   v1.13.5

cord@node1:~$ kubectl describe node node3
Name:               node3
Conditions:
  Type             Status  LastHeartbeatTime                 LastTransitionTime                Reason                       Message
  ----             ------  -----------------                 ------------------                ------                       -------
  Ready            False   Thu, 18 Apr 2019 01:15:46 -0400   Thu, 18 Apr 2019 01:03:48 -0400   KubeletNotReady              runtime network not ready: NetworkReady=false reason:NetworkPluginNotReady message:docker: network plugin is not ready: cni config uninitialized
Addresses:
  InternalIP:  192.168.2.6
  Hostname:    node3

cord@node3:~$ journalctl -u kubelet

Apr 18 01:24:50 node3 kubelet[54132]: W0418 01:24:50.649047   54132 cni.go:149] Error loading CNI config list file /etc/cni/net.d/10-calico.conflist: error parsing configuration list: no 'plugins' key
Apr 18 01:24:50 node3 kubelet[54132]: W0418 01:24:50.649086   54132 cni.go:203] Unable to update cni config: No valid networks found in /etc/cni/net.d
Apr 18 01:24:50 node3 kubelet[54132]: E0418 01:24:50.649402   54132 kubelet.go:2192] Container runtime network not ready: NetworkReady=false reason:NetworkPluginNotReady message:docker: network plugin is not ready: cni config uninitialized
Apr 18 01:24:55 node3 kubelet[54132]: W0418 01:24:55.650816   54132 cni.go:149] Error loading CNI config list file /etc/cni/net.d/10-calico.conflist: error parsing configuration list: no 'plugins' key
Apr 18 01:24:55 node3 kubelet[54132]: W0418 01:24:55.650845   54132 cni.go:203] Unable to update cni config: No valid networks found in /etc/cni/net.d
Apr 18 01:24:55 node3 kubelet[54132]: E0418 01:24:55.651056   54132 kubelet.go:2192] Container runtime network not ready: NetworkReady=false reason:NetworkPluginNotReady message:docker: network plugin is not ready: cni config uninitialized
Apr 18 01:24:57 node3 kubelet[54132]: I0418 01:24:57.248519   54132 setters.go:72] Using node IP: "192.168.2.6"

Issue:

My file: 10-calico.conflist was incorrect. Verified it from a different node and from sample file in the same directory "calico.conflist.template".

Resolution:

Changing the file, "10-calico.conflist" and restarting the service using "systemctl restart kubelet", resolved my issue:

NAME    STATUS   ROLES    AGE   VERSION
node1   Ready    master   18h   v1.13.5
node2   Ready    <none>   18h   v1.13.5
node3   Ready    <none>   48m   v1.13.5

I recently started using VMWare Octant https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/octant. This is a better UI than the Kubernetes Dashboard. You can view the Kubernetes cluster and look at the details of the cluster and the PODS. This will allow you to check the logs and open a terminal into the POD(s).