Picture a busy Monday morning. You are working on leftover projects from the previous week, and assuming everything is fine with your applications as you had not received support tickets during the weekend. All of a sudden, during the middle of the day, you get a flood of reports from users who complain about slow response in your application and error pages piling up. You and your team are scrambling hard to figure out the issue.

You check your Kubernetes cluster—some nodes are down, and multiple pods are stuck in a crash loop.

Sounds familiar?

Kubernetes can be very useful, but when something breaks or when there is a spike that leads to bottlenecks and eventually failures, troubleshooting can quickly become overwhelming.

Nodes might go offline due to resource exhaustion, network failures, or kernel issues, while pods can crash from misconfigurations or insufficient resources. Without deep visibility into what’s happening, fixing these failures becomes a time-consuming guessing game.

Site24x7 Kubernetes monitoring delivers an efficient remedy by providing granular visibility into your Kubernetes clusters, helping DevOps teams diagnose and fix problems before they escalate.

Understanding Kubernetes Node and Pod failures

Why nodes fail

• Resource contention: Overutilization of CPU, memory, or disk can make a node run short and unresponsive.
• Network problems: Connectivity issues are critical. When there is no communication, nodes are unresponsive.
• Hardware or cloud outages: Physical failures or cloud provider disruptions can take a node offline.
• Kernel issues : Kernel bugs and corruptions can cause node failures.
• Control Plane and API server issues : Unreachable API servers affect the connectivity and node functionality.
• Software bugs and configuration errors : Misconfigurations and software issues also can result in system failures.

Why pods fail

Pods are critical components where applications run in Kubernetes. Their failures can disrupt services.

Multiple reasons can lead to pod failure. But understanding why pods fail can help resolve issues quickly.

• Not enough resources: Pods might get evicted if the node runs low on CPU or memory.
• Health Check failures: Failure of liveness and readiness probes can cause frequent restarts.
• CrashLoopBackOff: The application inside a container keeps crashing and restarting.
• Image Pull failures: If Kubernetes cannot fetch the container image, the pod will not start.
• Node scheduling issues: If there is no suitable node, the pod will not get scheduled.
• PVC issues : When the persistent volume claim is requesting more than the available storage, pod failure might result.
• Pod eviction : This happens if the node experiences resource starvation.

Troubleshooting Kubernetes failures

We have explained a few practices that will help you troubleshoot Kubernetes node and pod failures:

1. Keep an eye on nodes

Nodes must be constantly monitored to ensure they are functioning correctly. Site24x7 tracks node health and usage in real time, helping you spot problems early.

• Monitor CPU, memory, and disk usage: Get alerts before a node reaches critical levels.
• Check node events: Ensure that you keep an eye on the events so you can troubleshoot quickly and efficiently.
• Get immediate alerts: Know when a node goes offline so you can act fast.

2. Pod monitoring made easy

Understanding the state of your pods is crucial for maintaining application stability. Site24x7 provides clear insights into what is happening with your pods.

• Check pod status: Identify the pods stuck in any of the following states instantly: pending, terminating, or failed.
• See why a pod failed: Pinpoint issues with Kubernetes events like resource shortages or scheduling problems.
• Identify failing health checks: Detect pods that keep restarting due to liveness or readiness probe failures.

3. Digging deeper with logs

Logs provide valuable clues when troubleshooting Kubernetes issues, and Site24x7 makes them easy to analyze. By keeping track of logs , you can quickly identify issues and resolve them efficiently.

• Stream logs in real time: Watch logs as they happen to catch errors early.
• Spot recurring issues: Identify patterns in failures to fix root causes.
• Quickly search for errors: Filter logs to focus on specific problems.

4. Fast response with alerts and automation

Being proactive about failures is key to preventing downtime. Site24x7 provides automated alerts and remediation features to keep your Kubernetes environment running smoothly.

• Smart alerts: Get notified when anomalies are detected in node or pod behavior.
• Custom thresholds: Set alerts for CPU, memory, and disk usage to prevent issues.
• Incident timeline: See failures in context with logs and metrics for a clear diagnosis.

Fixing a node failure with Site24x7

An application is experiencing downtime at a peak hour. When Site24x7 is employed, it will first examine the setup. Let us assume that it detects a node running out of memory and sends an alert. On further investigation, it spots a pod that is consuming excessive resources.

With this analysis, the IT team can plan to scale the workload and set the right resource limit for the pod, which will prevent future failures.

The problem is solved even before the users could experience downtime!

Takeaways

Kubernetes failures can be complex, but with Site24x7's monitoring and alerts, you can detect and resolve issues before they impact users. Whether it's a node running out of resources or a pod failing health checks, Site24x7 provides the insights needed to keep your clusters running smoothly.

Start monitoring with Site24x7 Kubernetes Monitoring today to stay ahead of failures!