Checking pod logs

When kubectl describe pod does not show any information about an error, we can use another kubectl command, that is, logs. The kubectl logs command allows us to print container logs, and we can also view them in real time as well.

Tip

You can use kubectl logs with a flag to print the logs for the previous instance of the container in a pod if it exists:

$ kubectl logs -p some_pod

Now, let's check out this command on the crashing postgresql pod and try to find out what is going on with it – why it is failing. To get the pods list and check the pod logs, run the following commands:

$ kubectl get pods
$ kubectl logs postgresql-56dcb95567-njsp6

The output for the preceding commands is shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 6.3 – Getting error logs for the postgresql pod

Aha! As you can see from the preceding screenshot, the postgresql pod is failing as it needs the POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD environment variable...