Troubleshooting

Containers do not have network connectivity

Check for mismatched node names

If you notice that a workload has not received network connectivity, check that the node name for that host is properly configured. The name for the Node resource must match the node name in the workload endpoint resources on that host. If the names are mismatched, it is likely that all workloads on that node will not receive networking.

To check this, query one of the broken workload endpoints and check its node name:

calicoctl get workloadendpoints -n <namespace>

Then, check to see if a single corresponding node resource exists:

calicoctl get nodes

If the node resource either does not exist or there are multiple node resources representing the bad node, it is likely that the node’s hostname has changed. This often happens as a result of switching a node’s hostname between its FQDN and its short DNS name.

To correct this, you must perform the following steps (with examples shown using Kubernetes):

  1. Prevent new workloads from being scheduled on the bad node. 
    kubectl cordon mynode.internal.projectcalico.org
  2. Drain all workloads from the node. 
    kubectl drain mynode.internal.projectcalico.org --ignore-daemonsets
  3. On the bad node, set the hostname to the desired value. 
    sudo hostnamectl set-hostname <desired-hostname>
  4. Delete the bad node configuration from Calico. 
    calicoctl delete node <name-of-bad-node>
  5. Restart calico/node on the bad node to pick up the changes. 
    kubectl delete pod -n kube-system <name-of-calico-pod>
  6. Reenable scheduling of worklods on the node. 
    kubectl uncordon mynode.internal.projectcalico.org

To prevent this problem from occurring, we recommend always mounting the /var/lib/calico directory into the calico/node container when installing Calico. This allows all components to detect and use the same node name. See node name determination for more information.

Check BGP peer status

If you have connectivity between containers on the same host, and between containers and the Internet, but not between containers on different hosts, it probably indicates a problem in your BGP configuration.

Look at calicoctl node status on each host. It should include output like this:

Calico process is running.

IPv4 BGP status
+--------------+-------------------+-------+----------+-------------+
| PEER ADDRESS |     PEER TYPE     | STATE |  SINCE   |    INFO     |
+--------------+-------------------+-------+----------+-------------+
| 172.17.8.102 | node-to-node mesh | up    | 23:30:04 | Established |
+--------------+-------------------+-------+----------+-------------+

IPv6 BGP status
No IPv6 peers found.

If you do not see this, please check the following.

  • Make sure there is IP connectivity between your hosts.

  • Make sure your network allows the requisite BGP traffic on TCP port 179.

Configure NetworkManager

Configure NetworkManager before attempting to use Calico networking.

NetworkManager manipulates the routing table for interfaces in the default network namespace where Calico veth pairs are anchored for connections to containers. This can interfere with the Calico agent’s ability to route correctly.

Create the following configuration file at /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/calico.conf to prevent NetworkManager from interfering with the interfaces:

[keyfile]
unmanaged-devices=interface-name:cali*;interface-name:tunl*

Running sudo calicoctl … with Environment Variables

If you use sudo for commands like calicoctl node run, remember that your environment variables will not be transferred to the sudo environment. You can run sudo with the -E flag to include your environment variables:

    sudo -E calicoctl node run

or you can set environment variables for sudo commands like this:

    sudo ETCD_ENDPOINTS=http://172.25.0.1:2379 calicoctl node run

Also be aware that connection information can be specified as a config file rather than using environment variables. See the calicoctl Configuration Overview guide for details.

Collecting diagnostics

If you hit problems, please raise an issue in GitHub.

Diagnostics can be collected using the calicoctl command line tool. This should be run with superuser privileges, for example:

    sudo calicoctl node diags