--- title: Troubleshooting Controlplane Nodes --- This section applies to nodes with the `controlplane` role in RKE2 and K3s clusters. ## Prerequisites As RKE2 and K3s rely on `containerd` as the container runtime, `crictl` replaces Docker for container management. Before proceeding with the troubleshooting commands, configure your environment by exporting the following variables: ### RKE2 ```bash export PATH=$PATH:/var/lib/rancher/rke2/bin/ export CRI_CONFIG_FILE=/var/lib/rancher/rke2/agent/etc/crictl.yaml ``` ### K3s ```bash export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin export CRI_CONFIG_FILE=/var/lib/rancher/k3s/agent/etc/crictl.yaml ``` ## Check if the Controlplane Components are Running **RKE2**: There are three specific containers launched on nodes with the `controlplane` role: * `kube-apiserver` * `kube-controller-manager` * `kube-scheduler` The containers should have state **Running**. You can check this using `crictl`: ```bash crictl ps | grep -E 'kube-apiserver|kube-controller-manager|kube-scheduler' ``` Example output: ``` CONTAINER IMAGE CREATED STATE NAME ATTEMPT POD ID POD NAMESPACE deb8a96948594 138b1e685e151 11 days ago Running kube-controller-manager 0 0996426295dc5 kube-controller-manager kube-system f5abb4c7846e4 138b1e685e151 11 days ago Running kube-scheduler 0 80cd9f30af0be kube-scheduler kube-system ecd8a6991c22a 138b1e685e151 11 days ago Running kube-apiserver 0 58e042fabe78c kube-apiserver kube-system ``` **K3s**: These components run as embedded processes within the K3s service. They do not run as separate containers, so their status is tied to the `k3s` systemd service: ```bash systemctl status k3s ``` ## Controlplane Logging :::note If you added multiple nodes with the `controlplane` role, both `kube-controller-manager` and `kube-scheduler` use a leader election process to determine the leader. Only the current leader will log the performed actions. See [Kubernetes leader election](../other-troubleshooting-tips/kubernetes-resources.md#kubernetes-leader-election) how to retrieve the current leader. ::: The logs can contain information on what the problem could be. **RKE2**: ```bash crictl logs $(crictl ps --name kube-apiserver -q) crictl logs $(crictl ps --name kube-controller-manager -q) crictl logs $(crictl ps --name kube-scheduler -q) ``` **K3s**: ```bash journalctl -u k3s | grep -i "kube-apiserver" journalctl -u k3s | grep -i "kube-controller-manager" journalctl -u k3s | grep -i "kube-scheduler" ``` ## RKE2/K3s Server Logging If Rancher provisions an RKE2 or K3s cluster that can't communicate with Rancher, you can run this command on a server node in the downstream cluster to get the server logs: **RKE2**: ```bash journalctl -u rke2-server -f ``` **K3s**: ```bash journalctl -u k3s -f ```