Pod Warnings Check

Pod Warnings Check is a built-in Command Probe template that checks for warning events on the targeted Kubernetes pods during a chaos experiment. Use it to detect problems such as image pull errors, scheduling failures, and resource constraints that surface as warning events while a fault is injected. You select pods by label, by name, or by the owning workload kind and namespace.

The probe runs the healthchecks utility bundled in the chaos probe image, queries the Kubernetes event API, and prints [Pass] when no warning events are found on the targeted pods. The comparator marks the probe as passed when the output contains [Pass].

BUILT-IN PROBE TEMPLATE

This is a built-in Command Probe template that runs on Kubernetes chaos infrastructure. Add it to an experiment from the probe library and customize its inputs. Go to Built-in probe templates to browse the full library, or go to Command probe to understand how command probes work.

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Use cases

Use this probe template to:

• Monitor pod health indicators during chaos experiments.

• Detect configuration issues during experiments.

• Validate application behavior under stress.

• Identify potential problems before they become critical.

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How the probe works

The template configures a Command Probe that runs healthchecks -name validate-pod-failure. The utility resolves the target pods from TARGET_LABELS, TARGET_NAMES, TARGET_KIND, and TARGET_NAMESPACE, reads their events through the Kubernetes API, and prints [Pass] when no warning events are present. The comparator passes the probe when the output contains [Pass], and fails it otherwise.

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Prerequisites

• Chaos infrastructure: A Kubernetes chaos infrastructure installed in the target cluster.

• Namespace access: Access to the target namespace and pods.

• RBAC permissions: Permissions for the chaos service account to query pod events.

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Probe properties

Command

healthchecks -name validate-pod-failure

Comparator

Type	Criteria	Value
string	contains	[Pass]

The probe passes when the command output contains [Pass], which indicates that no warning events were found on the targeted pods.

Environment variables

Variable	Description	Required	Default
TARGET_LABELS	Comma-separated list of labels used to filter pods (for example, app=nginx).	No	-
TARGET_NAMES	Comma-separated list of target pod names.	No	-
TARGET_NAMESPACE	Namespace of the target pods.	Yes	-
TARGET_KIND	Kind of the owning workload (for example, deployment, statefulset, daemonset).	No	deployment
STATUS_CHECK_TIMEOUT	Maximum time in seconds to wait for the status check.	No	180
STATUS_CHECK_DELAY	Delay in seconds between status checks.	No	2

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Run properties

Property	Description	Type	Default
timeout	Maximum time to wait for the probe to complete (for example, 30s, 1m, 5m).	String	180s
interval	Time between probe executions (for example, 1s, 5s, 10s).	String	1s
attempt	Number of retry attempts before the probe is marked as failed.	Integer	1
pollingInterval	Time between retry attempts (for example, 1s, 5s, 10s).	String	-
initialDelay	Initial delay before the probe starts (for example, 0s, 10s, 30s).	String	-
stopOnFailure	Stop the experiment if the probe fails.	Boolean	false
verbosity	Log verbosity level (info, debug, trace).	String	-

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Troubleshooting

Pod Warnings Check probe fails because warning events were found

The targeted pods have warning events, which is the condition this probe detects. Run kubectl describe pod or kubectl get events --field-selector type=Warning in the target namespace to read the warnings, then address the underlying cause such as failed image pulls, scheduling failures, or readiness probe failures.

Pod Warnings Check probe fails because no pods matched the target

The selectors did not resolve any pods. Confirm that TARGET_LABELS, TARGET_NAMES, TARGET_NAMESPACE, and TARGET_KIND match running pods. An empty match is treated as a failure.

Pod Warnings Check probe fails with a forbidden or RBAC error

The chaos service account does not have permission to read pods or events in the target namespace. Grant get and list on pods and events for the chaos service account in that namespace, then rerun the experiment.

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Related probe templates

• Pod Status Check: Validate that pods stay in the Running state.

• Container Restart Check: Validate that container restart counts stay within a threshold.

• Built-in probe templates: Browse the full probe template library.