Recommended steps to resolve Kubernetes issues

Resolving issues in Kubernetes can be systematic and efficient if you follow a structured approach. Otherwise, Kubernetes is vast and involves many applications, services, databases and many more.

So, once you stuck in any issue, it is very hard to get out of it. In this post, I am trying to recommend step-by-step process to debug and resolve Kubernetes issues.

Step-by-step process to debug and resolve issues

• **Identify and Understand the Problem **Understand the Symptoms: What exactly is the issue? Is it a Pod stuck in Pending state, a service not reachable, or a resource over-utilization?

Gather Context:

What is the impacted resource? (e.g., Pod, Service, Node, etc.)

When did the issue start, and what events led to it?

Are multiple resources or components affected?

• Check Resource Status Use kubectl to inspect the status of affected resources:

kubectl get pods

kubectl get services

kubectl get deployments

kubectl get nodes

Examine detailed information about the problematic resource:

kubectl describe pod

Inspect Events
Check for recent events that may indicate the cause:

kubectl get events --sort-by='.metadata.creationTimestamp'

Look for errors like FailedScheduling, FailedMount, or CrashLoopBackOff.

• Analyze Logs Inspect logs of the affected Pods to identify application-specific or runtime errors:

kubectl logs

For multi-container Pods, specify the container name:

kubectl logs -c

If logs are missing or incomplete, check log collection tools like Fluentd or ELK Stack (if configured).

• Verify Networking Test connectivity between Pods and Services:

Use ping, curl, or wget inside the Pod.

Check DNS resolution

kubectl exec -it -- nslookup

Inspect Service and Endpoint configuration:

kubectl get svc kubectl describe svc

kubectl get endpoints

• Investigate Node and Cluster Health Check Node health and readiness:

kubectl get nodes kubectl describe node

Look for DiskPressure, MemoryPressure, or PIDPressure.

Verify control plane components:

kubectl get componentstatuses

Inspect kubelet logs on the affected node:

journalctl -u kubelet

• Monitor Resource Usage Check resource consumption to ensure requests and limits are appropriate:

kubectl top nodes

kubectl top pods

Adjust resources.requests and resources.limits in the Pod specification if necessary.