kubelite process takes huge amount of CPU

[muxi]

After getting the 1.21 package from Debian 10 repo, the kubelite process is eating up a lot of CPU. The process keep using >100% CPU in top and the average uptime load is ~2 instead of <1 in previous versions.

inspection-report-20210420_092101.tar.gz

[navodissa]

I'm facing the same issue and I'm using Ubuntu 18.04.

[balchua]

@muxi from the tarball you provided, i can see that kubelite is not healthy, leading it to crashloop. That's why it is using up that much cpu. But i couldn't determine what is causing it to crashloop.

[muxi]

@balchua thanks for looking into it. For now I am just reverting to v1.20.5 which works for me. If anything else I can provide to help with debugging this problem let me know.

[balchua]

When you install 1.20.5 did you purge the snap?
For example: sudo snap remove microk8s --purge
Just curious.

[muxi]

When you install 1.20.5 did you purge the snap?

Did you mean 1.20.5 or 1.21? The install of 1.21 was (surprisingly) automatically done by snap. The rollback to 1.20.5 was done by snap revert. No purge was ever run.

[balchua]

Hi @muxi i can see that you are using the channel latest/stable. It seems like you have a long lasting cluster. Its highly recommended to stick to a channel example 1.20/stable or 1.21/stable to avoid unexpected incompatibility coming from different versions of kubernetes.
I was wondering if you can get the chance for a clean install of MicroK8s. Like remove with purge then install with 1.21/stable channel.
Thanks.

[Aaron-Ritter]

i face the same after upgrading to 1.21/edge especially the CPU usage is concerning with averaging around 10% in test with much less pods then our productin system (1.19/stable) kube-apiserver with averaging on 2% cpu load. Memory consumption is around 20% higher too.

k8s-test-n2   Ready    <none>   112d   v1.21.0-3+dc123ff2da727a

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
 2462 root      20   0 3304.4m 939.7m  99.1m S   9.3   9.6  53:25.36 kubelite

k8s-test-n1   Ready    <none>   217d   v1.21.0-3+dc123ff2da727a

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
21136 root      20   0 3311.2m 908.5m  99.1m S   8.3   9.3  51:36.99 kubelite

k8s-test-m    Ready    <none>   214d   v1.21.0-3+dc123ff2da727a

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
31545 root      20   0 3444.9m   1.0g 101.5m S  10.6  10.5  94:01.05 kubelite

[balchua]

Its hard to compare kubelite with the kube-apiserver alone. Kubelite packs in all the kubernetes components into 1 binary.
Kube-controller-manager, scheduler, proxy, apiserver, kubelet and dqlite.
Running the kubernetes as go routines vs each as standalone process do reduce the overall resource usage cpu and memory.

@ktsakalozos thoughts?

[ktsakalozos]

@balchua is right, in terms of CPU load it is the sum of all k8s services and the datastore (dqlite). In terms of memory usage it should be about 200MB less than the total memory used by a setup where each service starts by its own.

[Aaron-Ritter]

@balchua @ktsakalozos having a look for the last 7 days on to the avg and max CPU consumption of our test setup it actually looks like that overall the CPU consumption slightly dropped. Its at first without the explenation from @balchua surprising to see kubelite in top poping up, but overall there seems to be no real visible increase and maybe even a slight drop. Once 1.21.1 is released we will upgrade it in our prod environment.

[krichter722]

I'm also seeing the CPU usage which I understand is a crash loop. It prevents me from starting microk8s after rebooting and stopping it.

The issue is probably that in snap stable/1.21 has revision 2128 and stable/1.20 has 2143 making the higher version number pointing to an older revision. Maybe that causes an (partial/incomplete) incompatible downgrade.

inspection-report-20210514_123833.tar.gz

[balchua]

@krichter722 yes you are right, kubelite is crashlooping with this error.

Mai 14 12:38:23 mereet.com microk8s.daemon-kubelite[181888]: Error: start node: raft_start(): io: load closed segment 0000000021384298-0000000021384473: entries batch 176 starting at byte 5799224: entries count in preamble is zero

Is this a new setup or its an upgrade from previous version?

Maybe @ktsakalozos or @MathieuBordere can shed more light on this one.

[krichter722]

The issue occurred after upgrading to 1.21 with a long running instance running 1.20 which might have been upgraded before. A fresh install of 1.21 as well and 1.20 works (smoke test microk8s.status and kubectl get pods --all-namespaces which wasn't possible with crashlooping kubelite before) as well as an upgrade from 1.20 to 1.21 (same smoke test).

So, the issue is "resolved" for me by purging the microk8s snap installation and reinstalling, however light should be shed on the revision numbers as well as issues with an upgrade of an installation which is not freshly installed from 1.20 to 1.21.

[balchua]

Thank you @krichter822 for the information. The revision number is normal. I think the v 1.20.6 came out after the 1.21/stable was cut.
There is an upgrade test in the CI, ranging from 1.17 (i think) up to the latest.

[tsipo]

I am facing similar - and worse - issue. Not only the CPU consumption of kubelite is between 70%-130%, it takes microk8s minutes to get to start (after which it stabilizes on ~70% CPU), AND kubelite consumes 22-23GB which is >70% of my machine.
inspection-report-20210603_173003.tar.gz

[balchua]

@tsipo thank you for providing the inspect tarball.
IMHO, the high CPU is caused by kubelite crashing. I saw these logs.

Jun 03 16:49:48 rreshef-linux microk8s.daemon-kubelite[9911]: E0603 16:49:48.005191    9911 leaderelection.go:325] error retrieving resource lock kube-system/kube-controller-manager: Get "https://127.0.0.1:16443/apis/coordination.k8s.io/v1/namespaces/kube-system/leases/kube-controller-manager?timeout=5s": context deadline exceeded
Jun 03 16:49:48 rreshef-linux microk8s.daemon-kubelite[9911]: I0603 16:49:48.005245    9911 leaderelection.go:278] failed to renew lease kube-system/kube-controller-manager: timed out waiting for the condition
Jun 03 16:49:48 rreshef-linux microk8s.daemon-kubelite[9911]: I0603 16:49:48.905442    9911 event.go:291] "Event occurred" object="" kind="Lease" apiVersion="coordination.k8s.io/v1" type="Normal" reason="LeaderElection" message="rreshef-linux_653179cd-8cc7-40dc-8b98-db77e0586259 stopped leading"
Jun 03 16:49:49 rreshef-linux microk8s.daemon-kubelite[9911]: I0603 16:49:49.266364    9911 garbagecollector.go:160] Shutting down garbage collector controller
Jun 03 16:49:49 rreshef-linux microk8s.daemon-kubelite[9911]: I0603 16:49:49.366886    9911 leaderelection.go:278] failed to renew lease kube-system/kube-scheduler: timed out waiting for the condition
Jun 03 16:49:49 rreshef-linux microk8s.daemon-kubelite[9911]: F0603 16:49:49.366929    9911 server.go:205] leaderelection lost

Can you try adding the following

--leader-elect-lease-duration=60s
--leader-elect-renew-deadline=40s

to these files /var/snap/microk8s/current/args/kube-controller-manager and /var/snap/microk8s/current/args/kube-scheduler and then restart MicroK8s.
I am not sure if this will resolve the issue.

[tsipo]

@balchua Thanks for your prompt reply, it's unfortunately too late. I have already purged the previous installation of microk8s and installed the same version (I'm on latest/edge channel) anew. Now no problems - CPU consumption is reasonable, same is memory consumption (down to a few hundreds of MBs). So the issue was surely with the upgrade path from previous version to current on that channel.
BTW my biggest problem was not the CPU consumption, though 70%-130% is a bit high (but I have 8 cores). It's the memory consumption that killed me - it got up to 22-23GB, and that's my dev machine that runs more apps (and has 32GB in total).

[balchua]

Hi @tsipo thanks for giving us an update. If ever you find something strange feel free to create an issue.

[vdavy]

Hi, I got the same problem with microk8s 1.21 running on debian 11 testing : kubelite eats all my CPU
Here is the report : inspection-report-20210618_210554.tar.gz

When it autoupgraded to 1.21, I had to upgrade to debian 11 otherwise it wouldn't start. Kernel version now is 5.10.0-7-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.40-1 (2021-05-28) x86_64 GNU/Linux
The node is very slow to start and pretty unusable, so I gonna revert to 1.20 branch, waiting for a fix.

I'm running only one node and already tried to purge the cluster as mentioned above (pain in the ... to reinstall everything and what a pitty, didn't solve the problem).

Please note I'm open to try and test fixes.

[thenets]

Same problem here. I'm using a fresh Ubuntu 20.04 install.

This is my version (snap):

Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"21+", GitVersion:"v1.21.1-3+ba118484dd39df", GitCommit:"ba118484dd39df570e55e47f082e523cda7583e5", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2021-06-11T05:09:28Z", GoVersion:"go1.16.5", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}
Server Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"21+", GitVersion:"v1.21.1-3+ba118484dd39df", GitCommit:"ba118484dd39df570e55e47f082e523cda7583e5", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2021-06-11T05:06:35Z", GoVersion:"go1.16.5", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}

[krichter722]

I experienced rather high CPU consumption with a DNS forward loop as well on 1.21 after the crash loop mentioned above was no longer an issue for me. I set up calico and a IPv4+6 dual stack, but I don't see why this might not happen with other setups as well, e.g. if your ISP provides strange DNS settings.

Therefore I needed to add --resolv-conf=/run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf to /var/snap/microk8s/current/args/kubelet and setup the coredns configmap accordingling, see https://coredns.io/plugins/loop/ and https://microk8s.io/docs/addon-dns for a detailed explanation.

For me the issue was a huge amount of probe failures which also contributed to the high CPU usage which then probably lead to even more probe failures, but this issue might be worth taking a look at when investigating high CPU usage.

[AmilaDevops]

hi, is any one knows after upgrading to my k8s cluster into v1.21 was this kubelite process issue have to deal with the kernel versions I'm having in my Ubuntu O/S ? Because i'm getting this cpu 100% issue only in a one node of my microk8s cluster (which has a higher kernel version when comparing with other nodes). All other nodes are fine.

tnx

[YpeKingma]

Just installed microk8s 1.22 stable on ubuntu via snap, and top reports 10-30% cpu for kubelite on an i3, 4 core, 2GHz.
It's tolerable, but that much should not be needed to keep a single node available.

Would it make sense to try the above suggestion:
--leader-elect-lease-duration=60s
--leader-elect-renew-deadline=40s
?

[YpeKingma]

For the record, both files referred to above, kube-controller-manager and kube-scheduler in directory /var/snap/microk8s/current/args,
have these lines:
--leader-elect-lease-duration=60s
--leader-elect-renew-deadline=30s

[bttger]

I also came across this issue because I was wondering about relatively high CPU usage from the Kubelite process. I have about 20-30% load on idle after a fresh install. (dns, storage, ingress enabled)

[AlexsJones]

@YpeKingma the resource usage will be related to the intensity of workloads running in Kubernetes.
Are you saying this is running nothing or are there workloads scheduled?

[YpeKingma]

@AlexsJones There were no workloads scheduled.

[ktsakalozos]

@YpeKingma it would also help us know the hardware specs and the version of kubernetes you run. Would you be able to attach a microk8s inspect tarball? Thank you.

[castellanoj]

duplicate #3026

[barrettj12]

I also came across this issue because I was wondering about relatively high CPU usage from the Kubelite process. I have about 20-30% load on idle after a fresh install. (dns, storage, ingress enabled)

I'm also experiencing this. I have microk8s running but with literally nothing to do (idle), so it's CPU/memory usage should be extremely minimal. Nonetheless, I find it consistently using 20% of my CPU.

As a temporary fix, you can stop microk8s and restart it when you actually need it. It goes without saying that this should not be necessary for a user to do.

[barrettj12]

Looking at microk8s kubectl top pod -A, it seems that calico-node is accounting for most of the CPU/memory usage.

[bttger]

Looking at microk8s kubectl top pod -A, it seems that calico-node is accounting for most of the CPU/memory usage.

Have you run top on the host machine? I also see that calico-node is using the most regarding running pods, but overall the usage of the kubelite process is much higher (ranging between 3-10x higher than calico)

[barrettj12]

Looking at microk8s kubectl top pod -A, it seems that calico-node is accounting for most of the CPU/memory usage.

Have you run top on the host machine? I also see that calico-node is using the most regarding running pods, but overall the usage of the kubelite process is much higher (ranging between 3-10x higher than calico)

So kubelite is excluded from the processes listed in microk8s kubectl top pod -A? Was not aware, you are probably right.

[alexmarshallces]

I also came across this issue because I was wondering about relatively high CPU usage from the Kubelite process. I have about 20-30% load on idle after a fresh install. (dns, storage, ingress enabled)

I'm also experiencing this. I have microk8s running but with literally nothing to do (idle), so it's CPU/memory usage should be extremely minimal. Nonetheless, I find it consistently using 20% of my CPU.

As a temporary fix, you can stop microk8s and restart it when you actually need it. It goes without saying that this should not be necessary for a user to do.

Adding to this, I'm also seeing similar metrics: 20-40% CPU usage with nothing actually running on the cluster, calico taking up the majority of the processing being done with similar items enabled: dns, storage, ingress. Is there any progress on this ? Are there any other discussion threads where the performance issue is discussed and, ideally, resolved ?

[Atem18]

Same here with Ubuntu 22.04 on Raspberrypi 4 model B 4GB with three nodes HA enabled.

[jglick]

For purposes of local development and testing I have switched from Microk8s to Kind, for this reason among others.

[Atem18]

Yes but what about people wanting to use it in production ?

[AlexsJones]

Same here with Ubuntu 22.04 on Raspberrypi 4 model B 4GB with three nodes HA enabled.

HA enabled, you mean a control-plane on two nodes and third as worker or all three running as the control-plane?

[Atem18]

Same here with Ubuntu 22.04 on Raspberrypi 4 model B 4GB with three nodes HA enabled.

HA enabled, you mean a control-plane on two nodes and third as worker or all three running as the control-plane?

Hi, I used the following tutorial : https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/getting-started-with-kubernetes-ha?&_ga=2.187560111.665053589.1668255625-380658086.1668255625#1-overview

So I think the control plane is running on all the three nodes

[mikezerosix]

I have same problem, kubelite is running near 100% CPU. Ok, I was cheap and ran master Rasbi 3. I just set it up running version 1.23 as 1.25 did not work with it claiming cgroups were in enabled. There are no containers deployed and it can barely cope with 1 node joining.

kubelite at 75% and next ones are containerd 15+10% , sometime dblite jumps up.
BTW can I kill disable contianerd on master ? Isn't that unnecessary on master ?

[neoaggelos]

Hi @mikezerosix

BTW can I kill disable contianerd on master ? Isn't that unnecessary on master ?

Control plane nodes are also registered as workers by default, a work-around to prevent workloads from being scheduled there are to drain and taint the control plane nodes with:

microk8s kubectl drain $node
microk8s kubectl taint node $node key1=value1:NoSchedule

Also, can you share an inspection report so that we can have a look at it?

[augusto]

I have the same issue. Installed recently on Ubuntu 22.04. Running on a VM with 6 cores and 32gb of ram.
I'm running microk8s from snap 1.27/stable. I have disabled ha and enabled dns; no pods running.

The 2 main processes eating cpu are kubelite and etcd and they use roughtly 20% of it.

Any idea how to resolve this?

[ktsakalozos]

Hi @augusto Kubernetes services (API server, proxy, kubelet, scheduler, controller manager) will always produce in idle. For example the K8s services (all under kubelite) will constantly query the state of the cluster so as to figure out if there is work for them to do. Depending on the hardware you are running MicroK8s on 20% may be expected. Could you share a microk8s inspect tarball so that we check if this is the case or if there is a problem with the cluster?

[fybmain]

@ktsakalozos How frequent will the polling be? May the user adjust the frequency of polling?
I assigned all six P-cores of a Core-i7 12650H to my VM running microk8s. kubelite consumes about 10% of CPU on average.

[masterkain]

I see the same thing on microk8s 1.27 on ubuntu 23

• /snap/microk8s/5372/kubelite --scheduler-args-file=/var/snap/microk8s/5372/args/kube-scheduler --controller-manage... => 10% cpu average
• /snap/microk8s/5372/bin/k8s-dqlite --storage-dir=/var/snap/microk8s/5372/var/kubernetes/backe... => 7% cpu average

this is on a i5-12600KF

must say that using ~20% cpu 24/7 is not really ideal

[ktsakalozos]

@fybmain @masterkain I am not aware of any way to tune the frequency k8s services (many) check for state changes. But it seems a reasonable ask. Maybe upstream kubernetes has an answer. For sure if there is a way to tune this, MicroK8s you can do it in MicroK8s.

The percentages we are talking about here or on one core, right? What tool do you use to measure them?

[masterkain]

@ktsakalozos thanks for the reply -- nothing fancy, just a quick glance at top so the 20% is on all cores, this is on my baremetal ubuntu server homelab with just microk8s on it - in an effort to reduce wattage/billing costs I started to review some stuff and just happened to stumble upon this kind of usage

[augusto]

Sorry for the late reply @ktsakalozos ! I've torn down the microk8s vm I had. Not sure if this is of any use, but I installed K3s and out of the box the CPU utilisation was ~10% (compared to ~20% in microK8s after removing HA). Somehow K3s manages to use 50% less CPU than microk8s.

[luispabon]

Here's a comparison of k3s vs microk8s (HA off) on identical VMs on the same host with a similar amount of pods running:

Microk8s is a new install on a pristine system and k3s has an uptime of over 2 months

[BxL221]

When you install 1.20.5 did you purge the snap? For example: sudo snap remove microk8s --purge Just curious.

Great, thanks, I had the same problem with ubuntu server 2204 LTS , and purge solved it.

Saw that microk8s used more than 500% cpu on htop.

[Azbesciak]

Hi, any update on that topic? It is quite sad that problem has more than 3 years and it is still not solved.