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Troubleshooting installation issues

To assist in troubleshooting a failed OpenShift Container Platform installation, you can gather logs from the bootstrap and control plane, or master, machines. You can also get debug information from the installation program.

Prerequisites

  • You attempted to install an OpenShift Container Platform cluster, and installation failed.

Gathering logs from a failed installation

If you gave an SSH key to your installation program, you can gather data about your failed installation.

You use a different command to gather logs about an unsuccessful installation than to gather logs from a running cluster. If you must gather logs from a running cluster, use the oc adm must-gather command.
Prerequisites

  • Your OpenShift Container Platform installation failed before the bootstrap process finished. The bootstrap node is running and accessible through SSH.

  • The ssh-agent process is active on your computer, and you provided the same SSH key to both the ssh-agent process and the installation program.

  • If you tried to install a cluster on infrastructure that you provisioned, you must have the fully qualified domain names of the bootstrap and control plane nodes (also known as the master nodes).

Procedure

  1. Generate the commands that are required to obtain the installation logs from the bootstrap and control plane machines:

    • If you used installer-provisioned infrastructure, change to the directory that contains the installation program and run the following command:

      $ ./openshift-install gather bootstrap --dir <installation_directory> (1)
      1 installation_directory is the directory you specified when you ran ./openshift-install create cluster. This directory contains the OpenShift Container Platform definition files that the installation program creates.

      For installer-provisioned infrastructure, the installation program stores information about the cluster, so you do not specify the hostnames or IP addresses.

    • If you used infrastructure that you provisioned yourself, change to the directory that contains the installation program and run the following command:

      $ ./openshift-install gather bootstrap --dir <installation_directory> \ (1)
    --bootstrap <bootstrap_address> \ (2)
    --master <master_1_address> \ (3)
    --master <master_2_address> \ (3)
    --master <master_3_address>" (3)
      1 For installation_directory, specify the same directory you specified when you ran ./openshift-install create cluster. This directory contains the OpenShift Container Platform definition files that the installation program creates.
      2 <bootstrap_address> is the fully qualified domain name or IP address of the cluster’s bootstrap machine.
      3 For each control plane, or master, machine in your cluster, replace <master_*_address> with its fully qualified domain name or IP address.

      A default cluster contains three control plane machines. List all of your control plane machines as shown, no matter how many your cluster uses.
    Example output
    INFO Pulling debug logs from the bootstrap machine
INFO Bootstrap gather logs captured here "<installation_directory>/log-bundle-<timestamp>.tar.gz"

    If you open a Red Hat support case about your installation failure, include the compressed logs in the case.

Manually gathering logs with SSH access to your host(s)

Manually gather logs in situations where must-gather or automated collection methods do not work.

Prerequisites

  • You must have SSH access to your host(s).

Procedure

  1. Collect the bootkube.service service logs from the bootstrap host using the journalctl command by running:

    $ journalctl -b -f -u bootkube.service

  2. Collect the bootstrap host’s container logs using the podman logs. This is shown as a loop to get all of the container logs from the host:

    $ for pod in $(sudo podman ps -a -q); do sudo podman logs $pod; done

  3. Alternatively, collect the host’s container logs using the tail command by running:

    # tail -f /var/lib/containers/storage/overlay-containers/*/userdata/ctr.log

  4. Collect the kubelet.service and crio.service service logs from the master and worker hosts using the journalctl command by running:

    $ journalctl -b -f -u kubelet.service -u crio.service

  5. Collect the master and worker host container logs using the tail command by running:

    $ sudo tail -f /var/log/containers/*

Manually gathering logs without SSH access to your host(s)

Manually gather logs in situations where must-gather or automated collection methods do not work.

If you do not have SSH access to your node, you can access the systems journal to investigate what is happening on your host.

Prerequisites

  • Your OpenShift Container Platform installation must be complete.

  • Your API service is still functional.

  • You have system administrator privileges.

Procedure

  1. Access journald unit logs under /var/log by running:

    $ oc adm node-logs --role=master -u kubelet

  2. Access host file paths under /var/log by running:

    $ oc adm node-logs --role=master --path=openshift-apiserver

Getting debug information from the installation program

You can use any of the following actions to get debug information from the installation program.

  • Look at debug messages from a past installation in the hidden .openshift_install.log file. For example, enter:

    $ cat ~/<installation_directory>/.openshift_install.log (1)
    1 For installation_directory, specify the same directory you specified when you ran ./openshift-install create cluster.

  • Change to the directory that contains the installation program and re-run it with --log-level=debug:

    $ ./openshift-install create cluster --dir <installation_directory> --log-level debug (1)
    1 For installation_directory, specify the same directory you specified when you ran ./openshift-install create cluster.

Reinstalling the OpenShift Container Platform cluster

If you are unable to debug and resolve issues in the failed OpenShift Container Platform installation, consider installing a new OpenShift Container Platform cluster. Before starting the installation process again, you must complete thorough cleanup. For a user-provisioned infrastructure (UPI) installation, you must manually destroy the cluster and delete all associated resources. The following procedure is for an installer-provisioned infrastructure (IPI) installation.

Procedure

  1. Destroy the cluster and remove all the resources associated with the cluster, including the hidden installer state files in the installation directory:

    $ ./openshift-install destroy cluster --dir <installation_directory> (1)
    1 installation_directory is the directory you specified when you ran ./openshift-install create cluster. This directory contains the OpenShift Container Platform definition files that the installation program creates.

  2. Before reinstalling the cluster, delete the installation directory:

    $ rm -rf <installation_directory>

  3. Follow the procedure for installing a new OpenShift Container Platform cluster.