Red Hat CodeReady Containers

Debugging applications within Red Hat OpenShift containers

By Serhei Makarov January 9, 2020June 29, 2020

When debugging an application within a Red Hat OpenShift container, it is important to keep in mind that the Linux environment within the container is subject to various constraints. Because of these constraints, the full functionality of debugging tools might not be available:

• An unprivileged OpenShift container is restricted from accessing kernel interfaces that are required by some low-level debugging tools.

Note: Almost all applications on OpenShift run in unprivileged containers. Unprivileged containers allow the use of standard debugging tools such as gdbserver or strace. Examples of debugging tools that cannot be used in unprivileged containers include perf, which requires access to the kernel’s perf_events interface, and SystemTap, which depends on the kernel’s module-loading functionality.

• Debug information for system packages within OpenShift containers is not accessible. There is ongoing work (as part of the elfutils project) to develop a file server for debug information (debuginfod), which would make such access possible.
• The set of packages in an OpenShift container is fixed ahead of time, when the corresponding container image is built. Once a container is running, no additional packages can be installed. A few debugging tools are preinstalled in commonly used container base images, but any other tools must be added when the container image build process is configured.

To successfully debug a containerized application, it is necessary to understand these constraints and how they determine which debugging tools can be used.