Command
kubectl describe node <node-name>Explanation
The 'kubectl describe node' command gives a complete overview of a node’s conditions, capacities, allocations, taints, and recent events. It's essential for diagnosing node-level issues such as disk pressure, memory exhaustion, or network disconnection. The output includes pod allocation summaries and kubelet health reports.
Common Use Cases
- •Diagnose node health or scheduling issues
- •Check resource usage and pressure conditions
- •Inspect taints, labels, and annotations on a node
Best Practices
- ✓Always check 'Conditions' and 'Events' sections for the root cause of failures
- ✓Correlate node resource pressure with pod eviction events
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- ⚠Ignoring the 'Conditions' section, which lists the actual node health indicators
- ⚠Forgetting to specify the node name
Troubleshooting
Problem: Node marked as 'DiskPressure' or 'MemoryPressure'
Solution: Free up space or memory, or adjust pod resource requests to reduce pressure.
Examples
Describe details of the specified node
kubectl describe node node-1