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Google Professional Cloud Developer: How to Troubleshoot CrashLoopBackoff Pod in GKE?

Learn the correct way to troubleshoot a Pod in CrashLoopBackoff state when deploying a containerized microservices app to Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). Analyze previous Pod logs using kubectl to determine the root cause of failed start attempts. Essential knowledge for the Google Professional Cloud Developer certification exam.

Table of Contents

Question

You are currently pushing container images to Artifact Registry and deploying a containerized microservices application to GKE. After deploying the application, you notice that the services do not behave as expected. You use the kubectl get pods command to inspect the state of the application Pods, and discover that one of the Pods has a state of CrashLoopBackoff. How should you troubleshoot the Pod?

A. Connect to the problematic Pod by running the kubectl exec -it POD_NAME – /bin/bash command where the POD_NAME parameter is the name of the problematic Pod. Inspect the logs in the /var/log/messages folder to determine the root cause.
B. Execute the gcloud projects get-iam-policy PROJECT_ID command where the PROJECT_ID parameter is the name of the project where your Artifact Registry resides. Inspect the IAM bindings of the node pool s service account. Validate if the service account has the roles/artifactregistry.reader role.
C. Run the kubectl logs POD_NAME command where the POD_NAME parameter is the name of the problematic Pod. Analyze the logs of the Pod from previous runs to determine the root cause of failed start attempts of the Pod.
D. In the Google Cloud console, navigate to Cloud Logging in the project of the cluster’s VPC. Enter a filter to show denied egress traffic to the Private Google Access CIDR range. Validate if egress traffic is denied from your GKE cluster to the Private Google Access CIDR range.

Answer

C. Run the kubectl logs POD_NAME command where the POD_NAME parameter is the name of the problematic Pod. Analyze the logs of the Pod from previous runs to determine the root cause of failed start attempts of the Pod.

Explanation

When troubleshooting a Pod in CrashLoopBackoff state after deploying a containerized microservices application to Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), the correct approach is to run the command:

kubectl logs POD_NAME

Replace POD_NAME with the actual name of the problematic Pod.

This command will display the logs from the Pod’s previous runs. By carefully analyzing these logs, you can identify the underlying cause of the Pod’s repeated failed start attempts that led to the CrashLoopBackoff state.

The other options are incorrect for this scenario:

A. Using kubectl exec to connect to the Pod and inspecting /var/log/messages is not the right approach, as the Pod is crashing and not running successfully.

B. Checking IAM bindings of the node pool’s service account is irrelevant for diagnosing a CrashLoopBackoff issue. The roles/artifactregistry.reader role governs access to Artifact Registry, not Pod behavior.

D. Analyzing denied egress traffic to the Private Google Access CIDR range in Cloud Logging is not pertinent to determining why the Pod is crashing. Egress traffic issues would manifest differently.

Therefore, by running kubectl logs on the failing Pod and examining its previous logs, you can effectively troubleshoot the CrashLoopBackoff condition and pinpoint the root cause to resolve the issue.

Google Professional Cloud Developer certification exam assessment practice question and answer (Q&A) dump including multiple choice questions (MCQ) and objective type questions, with detail explanation and reference available free, helpful to pass the Google Professional Cloud Developer exam and earn Google Professional Cloud Developer certification.