Troubleshoot Calico for Windows

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Useful troubleshooting commands

Examine the HNS network(s)

When using the Calico CNI plugin, each Calico IPAM block (or the single podCIDR in host-local IPAM mode), is represented as a HNS l2bridge network. Use the following command to inspect the networks.

PS C:\> ipmo c:\CalicoWindows\libs\hns\hns.psm1
PS C:\> Get-HNSNetwork

Examine pod endpoints

Use the following command to view the HNS endpoints on the system. There should be one HNS endpoint per pod networked with Calico:

PS C:\> ipmo c:\CalicoWindows\libs\hns\hns.psm1
PS C:\> Get-HNSEndpoint

Troubleshoot

kubectl exec fails with timeout for Windows pods

Ensure that the Windows firewall (and any network firewall or cloud security group) allows traffic to the host on port 10250.

kubelet fails to register, complains of node not found in logs

This can be caused by a mismatch between a cloud provider (such as the AWS cloud provider) and the configuration of the node. For example, the AWS cloud provider requires that the node has a nodename matching its private domain name.

After initializing Calico for Windows, AWS metadata server is no longer reachable

This is a known Windows issue that Microsoft is working on. The route to the metadata server is lost when the vSwitch is created. As a workaround, manually add the route back by running:

PS C:\> New-NetRoute -DestinationPrefix 169.254.169.254/32
-InterfaceIndex <interface-index>

Where is the index of the "vEthernet (Ethernet 2)" device as shown by

PS C:\> Get-NetAdapter

Installation stalls at “Waiting for Calico initialization to finish”

This can be caused by Window’s Execution protection feature. Exit the install using Ctrl-C, unblock the scripts, run uninstall-calico.ps1, followed by install-calico.ps1.

Windows Server 2019 insider preview: after rebooting a node, Calico for Windows fails to start, the tigera-node.err.log file contains errors

After rebooting the Windows node, pods fail to schedule, and the kubelet log has CNI errors like “timed out waiting for interface matching the management IP (169.254.57.5) of network” (where the IP address may vary but will always be a 169.254.x.x address). To workaround:

  • Stop and then start Calico for Windows using the stop-calico.ps1 and start-calico.ps1 scripts
  • Sometimes the HNS network picks up a temporary self-assigned address at start-of-day and it does not get refreshed when the correct IP becomes known. Rebooting the node a second time often resolves the problem.

Invoke-Webrequest fails with TLS errors

The error, “The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel”, often means that Windows does not support TLS v1.2 (which is required by many websites) by default. To enable TLS v1.2, run the following command:

PS C:\> [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = `
[Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

Kubelet persistently fails to contact the API server

If kubelet is already running when Calico for Windows is installed, the creation of the container vSwitch can cause kubelet to lose its connection and then persistently fail to reconnect to the API server. To resolve this, restart kubelet after installing Calico for Windows.

No connectivity between pods on Linux and Windows nodes

If using AWS, check that the source/dest check is disabled on the interfaces assigned to your nodes. This allows nodes to forward traffic on behalf of local pods. In AWS, the “Change Source/Dest. Check” option can be found on the Actions menu for a selected network interface.

If using Calico networking, check that the Calico IP pool you are using has IPIP mode disabled (set to “Never). IPIP is not supported on Windows. To check the IP pool, you can use calicoctl:

$ calicoctl get ippool -o yaml
apiVersion: projectcalico.org/v3
items:
- apiVersion: projectcalico.org/v3
  kind: IPPool
  metadata:
    creationTimestamp: 2018-11-26T15:37:39Z
    name: default-ipv4-ippool
    resourceVersion: "172"
    uid: 34db7316-f191-11e8-ad7d-02850eebe6c4
  spec:
    blockSize: 26
    cidr: 192.168.0.0/16
    disabled: true
    ipipMode: Never
    natOutgoing: true

Felix log error: “Failed to create datastore client”

If the error includes ‘loading config file “"', follow the instructions in [Set environment variables](/archive/v3.16/getting-started/windows-calico/standard#install-calico-and-kubernetes-on-windows-nodes) to update the `KUBECONFIG` environment variable to the path of your kubeconfig file.

Felix starts, but does not output logs

By default, Felix waits to connect to the datastore before logging (in case the datastore configuration intentionally disables logging). To start logging at startup, update the FELIX_LOGSEVERITYSCREEN environment variable to “info” or “debug” level.