Using trace mount
The trace mount gadget is used to monitor mount and umount syscalls.
In this guide, we will learn how to use it by running a small Kubernetes cluster inside minikube.
How to use it?
First, we need to create two pods for us to play with:
$ kubectl run busybox-0 --image busybox:latest sleep inf
$ kubectl run busybox-1 --image busybox:latest sleep inf
You can now use the gadget, but output will be empty:
$ kubectl gadget trace mount
NODE NAMESPACE POD CONTAINER COMM PID TID MNTNS CALL
Indeed, it is waiting for mount and umount to be called.
So, in another terminal, exec a container and try to mount something:
$ kubectl get pods
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
busybox-0 1/1 Running 0 13s
busybox-1 1/1 Running 0 2m3s
$ kubectl exec -ti busybox-0 -- mount /mnt /mnt
mount: mounting /mnt on /mnt failed: No such file or directory
command terminated with exit code 255
Go back to the first terminal and see:
NODE NAMESPACE POD CONTAINER COMM PID TID MNTNS CALL
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 12841 12841 4026532682 mount("/mnt", "/mnt", "ext3", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 12841 12841 4026532682 mount("/mnt", "/mnt", "ext2", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 12841 12841 4026532682 mount("/mnt", "/mnt", "ext4", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 12841 12841 4026532682 mount("/mnt", "/mnt", "vfat", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 12841 12841 4026532682 mount("/mnt", "/mnt", "msdos", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 12841 12841 4026532682 mount("/mnt", "/mnt", "iso9660", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 12841 12841 4026532682 mount("/mnt", "/mnt", "fuseblk", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 12841 12841 4026532682 mount("/mnt", "/mnt", "xfs", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
All these lines correspond to the error we get from mount inside the pod.
Restrict output to certain pods
It can be useful to restrict the output to certains pods. There are many
flags that we can use for this. For example, we can use --selector option
to select by label. In a first terminal, run the following:
$ kubectl get pods --show-labels
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE LABELS
busybox-0 1/1 Running 0 2m9s run=busybox-0
busybox-1 1/1 Running 0 3m59s run=busybox-1
$ kubectl gadget trace mount --selector run=busybox-0
NODE NAMESPACE POD CONTAINER COMM PID TID MNTNS CALL
As you can see, the --selector option, and its -l shorthand awaits for pods labels as argument.
In another terminal, run these commands:
# Exec the first pod:
$ kubectl exec -ti busybox-0 -- mount /foo /bar
mount: mounting /foo on /bar failed: No such file or directory
command terminated with exit code 255
# Exec the other one:
$ kubectl exec -ti busybox-1 -- mount /quux /quuz
mount: mounting /quux on /quuz failed: No such file or directory
command terminated with exit code 255
Go back to the first terminal, you should only see output related to mount /foo /bar as a result of using --selector options filtering the pods:
NODE NAMESPACE POD CONTAINER COMM PID TID MNTNS CALL
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 14469 14469 4026532682 mount("/foo", "/bar", "ext3", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 14469 14469 4026532682 mount("/foo", "/bar", "ext2", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 14469 14469 4026532682 mount("/foo", "/bar", "ext4", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 14469 14469 4026532682 mount("/foo", "/bar", "vfat", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 14469 14469 4026532682 mount("/foo", "/bar", "msdos", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 14469 14469 4026532682 mount("/foo", "/bar", "iso9660", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 14469 14469 4026532682 mount("/foo", "/bar", "fuseblk", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
minikube default busybox-0 busybox-0 mount 14469 14469 4026532682 mount("/foo", "/bar", "xfs", MS_SILENT, "") = -2
Use JSON output.
This gadget supports JSON output, for this simply use -o json:
$ kubectl gadget trace mount -o json
{"type":"normal","node":"minikube","namespace":"default","pod":"busybox-0","container":"busybox-0","mntnsid":4026532588,"pid":5307,"tid":5307,"comm":"mount","operation":"mount","ret":-2,"latency":7954,"fs":"ext3","source":"/mnt","target":"/mnt","flags":["MS_SILENT"]}
{"type":"normal","node":"minikube","namespace":"default","pod":"busybox-0","container":"busybox-0","mntnsid":4026532588,"pid":5307,"tid":5307,"comm":"mount","operation":"mount","ret":-2,"latency":4051,"fs":"ext2","source":"/mnt","target":"/mnt","flags":["MS_SILENT"]}
{"type":"normal","node":"minikube","namespace":"default","pod":"busybox-0","container":"busybox-0","mntnsid":4026532588,"pid":5307,"tid":5307,"comm":"mount","operation":"mount","ret":-2,"latency":3702,"fs":"ext4","source":"/mnt","target":"/mnt","flags":["MS_SILENT"]}
{"type":"normal","node":"minikube","namespace":"default","pod":"busybox-0","container":"busybox-0","mntnsid":4026532588,"pid":5307,"tid":5307,"comm":"mount","operation":"mount","ret":-2,"latency":11737,"fs":"vfat","source":"/mnt","target":"/mnt","flags":["MS_SILENT"]}
{"type":"normal","node":"minikube","namespace":"default","pod":"busybox-0","container":"busybox-0","mntnsid":4026532588,"pid":5307,"tid":5307,"comm":"mount","operation":"mount","ret":-2,"latency":4145,"fs":"msdos","source":"/mnt","target":"/mnt","flags":["MS_SILENT"]}
{"type":"normal","node":"minikube","namespace":"default","pod":"busybox-0","container":"busybox-0","mntnsid":4026532588,"pid":5307,"tid":5307,"comm":"mount","operation":"mount","ret":-2,"latency":10073,"fs":"iso9660","source":"/mnt","target":"/mnt","flags":["MS_SILENT"]}
{"type":"normal","node":"minikube","namespace":"default","pod":"busybox-0","container":"busybox-0","mntnsid":4026532588,"pid":5307,"tid":5307,"comm":"mount","operation":"mount","ret":-2,"latency":4232,"fs":"fuseblk","source":"/mnt","target":"/mnt","flags":["MS_SILENT"]}
{"type":"normal","node":"minikube","namespace":"default","pod":"busybox-0","container":"busybox-0","mntnsid":4026532588,"pid":5307,"tid":5307,"comm":"mount","operation":"mount","ret":-2,"latency":3586,"fs":"xfs","source":"/mnt","target":"/mnt","flags":["MS_SILENT"]}
# You can use jq to make the output easier to read:
$ kubectl gadget trace mount -o json | jq
{
"type": "normal",
"node": "minikube",
"namespace": "default",
"pod": "busybox-0",
"container": "busybox-0",
"mntnsid": 4026532588,
"pid": 5307,
"tid": 5307,
"comm": "mount",
"operation": "mount",
"ret": -2,
"latency": 7954,
"fs": "ext3",
"source": "/mnt",
"target": "/mnt",
"flags": [
"MS_SILENT"
]
}
{
"type": "normal",
"node": "minikube",
"namespace": "default",
...
}
...
Clean everything
Congratulations! You reached the end of this guide! You can now delete the two pods we created:
$ kubectl delete pod busybox-0 busybox-1
pod "busybox-0" deleted
pod "busybox-1" deleted