Kubernetes Pod Debugging Cheat Sheet

Kubernetes Debugging•Permalink

Troubleshoot Pending, CrashLoopBackOff, image pull, readiness, liveness, and init container problems.

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Pending and Unschedulable Pods

List Pending pods

Find pods stuck before startup.

↗#

bashANYpendingscheduling

bash

kubectl get pods -A --field-selector=status.phase=Pending

Describe a Pending pod

Look for FailedScheduling, taints, or PVC issues.

↗#

bashANYpendingdescribe

bash

kubectl describe pod <pod> -n <namespace>

List PersistentVolumeClaims

Check if pod scheduling is blocked on volume binding.

↗#

bashANYstoragepvc

bash

kubectl get pvc -A

Describe a PVC

Inspect storage class, events, and binding failures.

↗#

bashANYstoragepvc

bash

kubectl describe pvc <claim> -n <namespace>

Inspect node taints

Check whether tolerations are missing.

↗#

bashANYschedulingtaints

bash

kubectl describe node <node> | sed -n '/Taints:/,/Unschedulable:/p'

View pod node selectors and affinity

Inspect scheduling constraints from raw YAML.

↗#

bashANYschedulingaffinity

bash

kubectl get pod <pod> -n <namespace> -o jsonpath='{.spec.nodeSelector}{"
"}{.spec.affinity}{"
"}'

CrashLoopBackOff and Image Pull Errors

Find CrashLoopBackOff pods

List pods that are restarting and failing to stay up.

↗#

bashANYcrashlooppods

bash

kubectl get pods -A | grep CrashLoopBackOff

Read logs from the previous failed container

Very useful when a restart wipes current state.

↗#

bashANYcrashlooplogs

bash

kubectl logs <pod> -n <namespace> -c <container> --previous

Describe image pull failures

Inspect ErrImagePull and ImagePullBackOff reasons.

↗#

bashANYimage-pullevents

bash

kubectl describe pod <pod> -n <namespace> | sed -n '/Events:/,$p'

Inspect image pull secrets referenced by a pod

Verify that imagePullSecrets are wired correctly.

↗#

bashANYimage-pullsecrets

bash

kubectl get pod <pod> -n <namespace> -o jsonpath='{.spec.imagePullSecrets[*].name}{"
"}'

Describe docker registry secret

Check secret type and metadata for image pulls.

↗#

bashANYimage-pullsecrets

bash

kubectl describe secret <secret> -n <namespace>

Show waiting reason for first container

Compact way to inspect wait state reasons.

↗#

bashANYstatusreason

bash

kubectl get pod <pod> -n <namespace> -o jsonpath='{.status.containerStatuses[0].state.waiting.reason}{"
"}'

Readiness, Liveness, and Startup Probes

Inspect configured probes

View readiness, liveness, and startup probe definitions.

↗#

bashANYprobeshealthchecks

bash

kubectl get pod <pod> -n <namespace> -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[*].readinessProbe}{"
"}{.spec.containers[*].livenessProbe}{"
"}{.spec.containers[*].startupProbe}{"
"}'

See probe failure events

Describe a pod and inspect event messages for failing probes.

↗#

bashANYprobesevents

bash

kubectl describe pod <pod> -n <namespace> | grep -A5 -i probe

Run the probe command manually

Validate probe behavior inside the container context.

↗#

bashANYprobesexec

bash

kubectl exec -it <pod> -n <namespace> -c <container> -- <probe-command>

Port-forward and test HTTP probe locally

Verify whether the probe endpoint behaves as expected.

↗#

bashANYprobeshttp

bash

kubectl port-forward pod/<pod> -n <namespace> 8080:<container-port>

Call a probe endpoint after port-forward

Use curl locally against the forwarded health endpoint.

↗#

bashANYprobescurl

bash

curl -i http://127.0.0.1:8080/healthz

Init Container Debugging

Inspect init container statuses

See waiting, terminated, and exit details for init containers.

↗#

bashANYinit-containersstatus

bash

kubectl get pod <pod> -n <namespace> -o jsonpath='{.status.initContainerStatuses}{"
"}'

Read logs from an init container

Inspect the failing setup step before app containers start.

↗#

bashANYinit-containerslogs

bash

kubectl logs <pod> -n <namespace> -c <init-container>

Describe init container failure

Read events and termination details from the pod description.

↗#

bashANYinit-containersevents

bash

kubectl describe pod <pod> -n <namespace>

Copy a pod and override its command

Use kubectl debug to clone a pod with a safer command for inspection.

↗#

bashANYdebugcopy-pod

bash

kubectl debug <pod> -n <namespace> --copy-to=<pod>-copy --set-image='*=busybox:1.36' -it

Resources and OOMKilled

Check resource usage for a pod

Compare live usage against requests and limits.

↗#

bashANYresourcesmetrics

bash

kubectl top pod <pod> -n <namespace>

Show pod resource requests and limits

Inspect CPU and memory resource settings quickly.

↗#

bashANYresourceslimits

bash

kubectl get pod <pod> -n <namespace> -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[*].resources}{"
"}'

Show termination reason

Check whether the last exit reason was OOMKilled.

↗#

bashANYoomkilledstatus

bash

kubectl get pod <pod> -n <namespace> -o jsonpath='{.status.containerStatuses[0].lastState.terminated.reason}{"
"}'

Show last exit code

Inspect the numeric exit code for the container.

↗#

bashANYexit-codestatus

bash

kubectl get pod <pod> -n <namespace> -o jsonpath='{.status.containerStatuses[0].lastState.terminated.exitCode}{"
"}'

More in Kubernetes Debugging

Kubernetes Logs and Events Cheat Sheet

Find pod logs, previous container logs, event timelines, kube-system logs, and cluster incident evidence quickly.

Kubernetes Node Debugging Cheat Sheet

Diagnose node readiness, kubelet issues, pressure conditions, cordon/drain, and node-level debugging with kubectl debug.

Kubernetes Network Debugging Cheat Sheet

Debug Services, DNS, Ingress, network policies, connectivity, endpoints, and port-forwarding issues.

Kubernetes Debugging Cheat Sheet

Core kubectl troubleshooting commands for pods, deployments, services, events, logs, exec sessions, and ephemeral debugging.

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