Docs Self-Managed Deploy Kubernetes Guides Google GKE This is documentation for Self-Managed v23.3, which is no longer supported. To view the latest available version of the docs, see v24.3. Deploy a Redpanda Cluster in Google Kubernetes Engine Deploy a secure Redpanda cluster and Redpanda Console in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). Then, use rpk both as an internal client and an external client to interact with your Redpanda cluster from the command line. Your Redpanda cluster has the following security features: SASL for authenticating users' connections. TLS with self-signed certificates for secure communication between the cluster and clients. Prerequisites Before you begin, you must have the following: Complete the 'Before you begin' steps and the 'Launch Cloud Shell' steps of the GKE quickstart. Cloud Shell comes preinstalled with the Google Cloud CLI, the kubectl command-line tool, and the Helm package manager. kubectl. Minimum required Kubernetes version: 1.21. kubectl version --short --client Helm. Minimum required Helm version: 3.10.0 helm version Create a GKE cluster Your GKE cluster must have one worker node available for each Redpanda broker that you plan to deploy in your Redpanda cluster. You also need to run the worker nodes on a machine type that supports the requirements and recommendations for production deployments. In this step, you create a GKE cluster with three nodes on c2d-standard-8 machine types. Deploying three nodes allows your GKE cluster to support a Redpanda cluster with three brokers. The c2d-standard-8 instance type comes with: 2 cores per worker node, which is a requirement for production. Local NVMe disks, which is recommended for best performance. The Helm chart configures podAntiAffinity rules to make sure that only one Pod running a Redpanda broker is scheduled on each worker node. Create a GKE cluster. Replace the <region> placeholder with your own region. gcloud container clusters create <cluster-name> \ --machine-type c2d-standard-8 \ --num-nodes=3 \ --local-nvme-ssd-block count=2 \ --region=<region> To see all options that you can specify when creating a cluster, see the Cloud SDK reference. Or, for help creating a GKE cluster, see the GKE documentation. Create a StorageClass for your local NVMe disks When you provisioned the Kubernetes cluster, you selected an instance type that comes with local NVMe disks. However, these disks are not automatically mounted or formatted upon creation. To use these local NVMe disks, you must mount and format them, and you must create the necessary PersistentVolumes (PVs). To automate this process, you can use a Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver. In this step, you install the recommended local volume manager (LVM) CSI driver. Then, you create a StorageClass that references the LVM CSI driver and specifies the recommended XFS file system. Install the LVM CSI driver: helm repo add metal-stack https://helm.metal-stack.io helm repo update helm install csi-driver-lvm metal-stack/csi-driver-lvm \ --namespace csi-driver-lvm \ --create-namespace \ --set lvm.devicePattern='/dev/nvme[0-9]n[0-9]' The lvm.devicePattern property specifies the pattern that the CSI driver uses to identify available NVMe volumes on your worker nodes. Create the StorageClass: csi-driver-lvm-striped-xfs.yaml apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1 kind: StorageClass metadata: name: csi-driver-lvm-striped-xfs provisioner: lvm.csi.metal-stack.io reclaimPolicy: Retain volumeBindingMode: WaitForFirstConsumer allowVolumeExpansion: true parameters: type: "striped" csi.storage.k8s.io/fstype: xfs provisioner: The LVM CSI driver responsible for provisioning the volume. reclaimPolicy: The Retain policy ensures that the underlying volume is not deleted when the corresponding PVC is deleted. volumeBindingMode: The WaitForFirstConsumer mode delays the binding and provisioning of a PersistentVolume until a Pod that uses the PVC is created. This mode is important for ensuring that the PV is created on the same node where the Pod will run because the PV will use the node’s local NVMe volumes. allowVolumeExpansion: Allows the volume to be expanded after it has been provisioned. parameters.type: Combines multiple physical volumes to create a single logical volume. In a striped setup, data is spread across the physical volumes in a way that distributes the I/O load evenly, improving performance by allowing parallel disk I/O operations. parameters.csi.storage.k8s.io/fstype: Formats the volumes with the XFS file system. Redpanda Data recommends XFS for its enhanced performance with Redpanda workloads. Apply the StorageClass: kubectl apply -f csi-driver-lvm-striped-xfs.yaml After applying this StorageClass, any PVC that references it will attempt to provision storage using the LVM CSI driver and the provided parameters. Configure external access Add inbound firewall rules to your instances so that external traffic can reach the following node ports on all Kubernetes worker nodes in the cluster: 31644 31092 30082 30081 For help creating firewall rules, see the Google VPC documentation. Deploy Redpanda and Redpanda Console In this step, you deploy Redpanda with SASL authentication and self-signed TLS certificates. Redpanda Console is included as a subchart in the Redpanda Helm chart. Helm + Operator Helm Make sure that you have permission to install custom resource definitions (CRDs): kubectl auth can-i create CustomResourceDefinition --all-namespaces You should see yes in the output. You need these cluster-level permissions to install cert-manager and Redpanda Operator CRDs in the next steps. Install cert-manager using Helm: helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io helm repo update helm install cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \ --set installCRDs=true \ --namespace cert-manager \ --create-namespace The Redpanda Helm chart uses cert-manager to enable TLS and manage TLS certificates by default. Install the Redpanda Operator custom resource definitions (CRDs): kubectl kustomize "https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda-operator//src/go/k8s/config/crd?ref=v2.3.3-24.3.1" \ | kubectl apply -f - Deploy the Redpanda Operator: helm repo add redpanda https://charts.redpanda.com helm upgrade --install redpanda-controller redpanda/operator \ --namespace <namespace> \ --set image.tag=v2.3.3-24.3.1 \ --create-namespace \ --timeout 1h If you already have Flux installed and you want it to continue managing resources across the entire cluster, use the --set additionalCmdFlags="{--enable-helm-controllers=false}" flag. This flag prevents the Redpanda Operator from deploying its own set of Helm controllers that may conflict with those installed with Flux. Ensure that the Deployment is successfully rolled out: kubectl --namespace <namespace> rollout status --watch deployment/redpanda-controller-operator deployment "redpanda-controller-operator" successfully rolled out Install a Redpanda custom resource in the same namespace as the Redpanda Operator: redpanda-cluster.yaml apiVersion: cluster.redpanda.com/v1alpha1 kind: Redpanda metadata: name: redpanda spec: chartRef: {} clusterSpec: external: domain: customredpandadomain.local auth: sasl: enabled: true users: - name: superuser password: secretpassword storage: persistentVolume: enabled: true storageClass: csi-driver-lvm-striped-xfs kubectl apply -f redpanda-cluster.yaml --namespace <namespace> external.domain: The custom domain that each broker will advertise to clients externally. This domain is added to the internal and external TLS certificates so that you can connect to the cluster using this domain. auth.sasl.name: Creates a superuser called superuser that can grant permissions to new users in your cluster using access control lists (ACLs). storage.persistentVolume.storageClass: Points each PVC associated with the Redpanda brokers to the csi-driver-lvm-striped-xfs StorageClass. This StorageClass allows the LVM CSI driver to provision the appropriate local PersistentVolumes backed by NVMe disks for each Redpanda broker. Wait for the Redpanda Operator to deploy Redpanda using the Helm chart: kubectl get redpanda --namespace <namespace> --watch NAME READY STATUS redpanda True Redpanda reconciliation succeeded This step may take a few minutes. You can watch for new Pods to make sure that the deployment is progressing: kubectl get pod --namespace <namespace> If it’s taking too long, see Troubleshoot. Install cert-manager using Helm: helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io helm repo update helm install cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \ --set installCRDs=true \ --namespace cert-manager \ --create-namespace TLS is enabled by default. The Redpanda Helm chart uses cert-manager to manage TLS certificates by default. Install Redpanda with SASL enabled: helm repo add redpanda https://charts.redpanda.com \ helm install redpanda redpanda/redpanda \ --namespace <namespace> --create-namespace \ --set auth.sasl.enabled=true \ --set "auth.sasl.users[0].name=superuser" \ --set "auth.sasl.users[0].password=secretpassword" \ --set external.domain=customredpandadomain.local \ --set "storage.persistentVolume.storageClass=csi-driver-lvm-striped-xfs" \ --wait \ --timeout 1h external.domain: The custom domain that each broker advertises to clients externally. This domain is added to the internal and external TLS certificates so that you can connect to the cluster using this domain. auth.sasl.name: Creates a superuser called superuser that can grant permissions to new users in your cluster using access control lists (ACLs). storage.persistentVolume.storageClass: Points each PVC associated with the Redpanda brokers to the csi-driver-lvm-striped-xfs StorageClass. This StorageClass allows the LVM CSI driver to provision the appropriate local PersistentVolumes backed by NVMe disks for each Redpanda broker. The installation displays some tips for getting started. If the installation is taking a long time, see Troubleshoot. Verify the deployment When the Redpanda Helm chart is deployed, you should have: Three Redpanda brokers. Each Redpanda broker runs inside a separate Pod and is scheduled on a separate worker node. One PVC bound to a PV for each Redpanda broker. These PVs are what the Redpanda brokers use to store the Redpanda data directory with all your topics and metadata. Verify that each Redpanda broker is scheduled on only one Kubernetes node: kubectl get pod --namespace <namespace> \ -o=custom-columns=NODE:.spec.nodeName,POD_NAME:.metadata.name -l \ app.kubernetes.io/component=redpanda-statefulset Example output: NODE POD_NAME example-worker3 redpanda-0 example-worker2 redpanda-1 example-worker redpanda-2 Verify that each Redpanda broker has a bound PVC: kubectl get persistentvolumeclaim \ --namespace <namespace> \ -o custom-columns=NAME:.metadata.name,STATUS:.status.phase,STORAGECLASS:.spec.storageClassName Example output: NAME STATUS STORAGECLASS datadir-redpanda-0 Bound csi-driver-lvm-striped-xfs datadir-redpanda-1 Bound csi-driver-lvm-striped-xfs datadir-redpanda-2 Bound csi-driver-lvm-striped-xfs Create a user In this step, you use rpk to create a new user. Then, you authenticate to Redpanda with the superuser to grant permissions to the new user. You’ll authenticate to Redpanda with this new user to create a topic in the next steps. As a security best practice, you should use the superuser only to grant permissions to new users through ACLs. Never delete the superuser. You need the superuser to grant permissions to new users. Create a new user called redpanda-twitch-account with the password changethispassword: kubectl --namespace <namespace> exec -ti redpanda-0 -c redpanda -- \ rpk security acl user create redpanda-twitch-account \ -p changethispassword Example output: Created user "redpanda-twitch-account". Use the superuser to grant the redpanda-twitch-account user permission to execute all operations only for a topic called twitch-chat. kubectl exec --namespace <namespace> -c redpanda redpanda-0 -- \ rpk security acl create --allow-principal User:redpanda-twitch-account \ --operation all \ --topic twitch-chat \ -X user=superuser -X pass=secretpassword -X sasl.mechanism=SCRAM-SHA-512 Example output: PRINCIPAL RESOURCE-TYPE RESOURCE-NAME OPERATION PERMISSION User:redpanda TOPIC twitch-chat ALL ALLOW Start streaming In this step, you authenticate to Redpanda with the redpanda-twitch-account user to create a topic called twitch-chat. This topic is the only one that the redpanda-twitch-account user has permission to access. Then, you produce messages to the topic, and consume messages from it. Create an alias to simplify the rpk commands: alias internal-rpk="kubectl --namespace <namespace> exec -i -t redpanda-0 -c redpanda -- rpk -X user=redpanda-twitch-account -X pass=changethispassword -X sasl.mechanism=SCRAM-SHA-256" Create a topic called twitch-chat: Helm + Operator Helm Create a Secret in which to store your user’s password: kubectl create secret generic redpanda-secret --from-literal=password='changethispassword' --namespace <namespace> Create a Topic resource: topic.yaml apiVersion: cluster.redpanda.com/v1alpha1 kind: Topic metadata: name: twitch-chat spec: kafkaApiSpec: brokers: - "redpanda-0.redpanda.<namespace>.svc.cluster.local:9093" - "redpanda-1.redpanda.<namespace>.svc.cluster.local:9093" - "redpanda-2.redpanda.<namespace>.svc.cluster.local:9093" tls: caCertSecretRef: name: "redpanda-default-cert" key: "ca.crt" sasl: username: redpanda-twitch-account mechanism: SCRAM-SHA-256 passwordSecretRef: name: redpanda-secret key: password Apply the Topic resource in the same namespace as your Redpanda cluster: kubectl apply -f topic.yaml --namespace <namespace> Check the logs of the Redpanda Operator to confirm that the topic was created: kubectl logs -l app.kubernetes.io/name=operator -c manager --namespace <namespace> You should see that the Redpanda Operator reconciled the Topic resource. For example: Example output { "level":"info", "ts":"2023-09-25T16:20:09.538Z", "logger":"TopicReconciler.Reconcile", "msg":"Starting reconcile loop", "controller":"topic", "controllerGroup":"cluster.redpanda.com", "controllerKind":"Topic", "Topic": { "name":"twitch-chat", "namespace":"<namespace>" }, "namespace":"<namespace>", "name":"twitch-chat", "reconcileID":"c0cf9abc-a553-48b7-9b6e-2de3cdfb4432" } { "level":"info", "ts":"2023-09-25T16:20:09.581Z", "logger":"TopicReconciler.Reconcile", "msg":"reconciliation finished in 43.436125ms, next run in 3s", "controller":"topic", "controllerGroup":"cluster.redpanda.com", "controllerKind":"Topic", "Topic": { "name":"twitch-chat", "namespace":"<namespace>" }, "namespace":"<namespace>", "name":"twitch-chat", "reconcileID":"c0cf9abc-a553-48b7-9b6e-2de3cdfb4432", "result": { "Requeue":false, "RequeueAfter":3000000000 } } internal-rpk topic create twitch-chat Example output: TOPIC STATUS twitch-chat OK Describe the topic: internal-rpk topic describe twitch-chat Expected output: SUMMARY ======= NAME twitch-chat PARTITIONS 1 REPLICAS 1 CONFIGS ======= KEY VALUE SOURCE cleanup.policy delete DYNAMIC_TOPIC_CONFIG compression.type producer DEFAULT_CONFIG message.timestamp.type CreateTime DEFAULT_CONFIG partition_count 1 DYNAMIC_TOPIC_CONFIG redpanda.datapolicy function_name: script_name: DEFAULT_CONFIG redpanda.remote.read false DEFAULT_CONFIG redpanda.remote.write false DEFAULT_CONFIG replication_factor 1 DYNAMIC_TOPIC_CONFIG retention.bytes -1 DEFAULT_CONFIG retention.ms 604800000 DEFAULT_CONFIG segment.bytes 1073741824 DEFAULT_CONFIG Produce a message to the topic: internal-rpk topic produce twitch-chat Type a message, then press Enter: Pandas are fabulous! Example output: Produced to partition 0 at offset 0 with timestamp 1663282629789. Press Ctrl+C to finish producing messages to the topic. Consume one message from the topic: internal-rpk topic consume twitch-chat --num 1 Expected output: { "topic": "twitch-chat", "value": "Pandas are fabulous!", "timestamp": 1663282629789, "partition": 0, "offset": 0 } Explore your topic in Redpanda Console Redpanda Console is a developer-friendly web UI for managing and debugging your Redpanda cluster and your applications. In this step, you use port-forwarding to access Redpanda Console on your local network. Because you’re using the Community Edition of Redpanda Console, you should not expose Redpanda Console outside your local network. The Community Edition of Redpanda Console does not provide authentication, and it connects to the Redpanda cluster as superuser. To use the Enterprise Edition, you need a license key, see Redpanda Licensing. Expose Redpanda Console to your localhost: kubectl --namespace <namespace> port-forward svc/redpanda-console 8080:8080 The kubectl port-forward command actively runs in the command-line window. To execute other commands while the command is running, open another command-line window. Open Redpanda Console on http://localhost:8080. All your Redpanda brokers are listed along with their IP addresses and IDs. Go to Topics > twitch-chat. The message that you produced to the topic is displayed along with some other details about the topic. Press Ctrl+C in the command-line to stop the port-forwarding process. Configure external access to Redpanda If you want to connect to the Redpanda cluster with external clients, Redpanda brokers must advertise an externally accessible address that external clients can connect to. External clients are common in Internet of Things (IoT) environments, or if you use external services that do not implement VPC peering in your network. When you created the cluster, you set the external.domain configuration to customredpandadomain.local, which means that your Redpanda brokers are advertising the following addresses: redpanda-0.customredpandadomain.local redpanda-1.customredpandadomain.local redpanda-2.customredpandadomain.local To access your Redpanda brokers externally, you can map your worker nodes' IP addresses to these domains. IP addresses can change. If the IP addresses of your worker nodes change, you must update your /etc/hosts file with the new mappings. In a production environment, it’s a best practice to use ExternalDNS to manage DNS records for your brokers. See Use ExternalDNS for external access. Add mappings in your /etc/hosts file between your worker nodes' IP addresses and their custom domain names: sudo true && kubectl --namespace <namespace> get endpoints,node -A -o go-template='{{ range $_ := .items }}{{ if and (eq .kind "Endpoints") (eq .metadata.name "redpanda-external") }}{{ range $_ := (index .subsets 0).addresses }}{{ $nodeName := .nodeName }}{{ $podName := .targetRef.name }}{{ range $node := $.items }}{{ if and (eq .kind "Node") (eq .metadata.name $nodeName) }}{{ range $_ := .status.addresses }}{{ if eq .type "ExternalIP" }}{{ .address }} {{ $podName }}.customredpandadomain.local{{ "\n" }}{{ end }}{{ end }}{{ end }}{{ end }}{{ end }}{{ end }}{{ end }}' | envsubst | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts /etc/hosts 203.0.113.3 redpanda-0.customredpandadomain.local 203.0.113.5 redpanda-1.customredpandadomain.local 203.0.113.7 redpanda-2.customredpandadomain.local Save the root certificate authority (CA) to your local file system outside Kubernetes: kubectl --namespace <namespace> get secret redpanda-external-root-certificate -o go-template='{{ index .data "ca.crt" | base64decode }}' > ca.crt Install rpk on your local machine, not on a Pod: Linux macOS Download the rpk archive for Linux, and make sure the version matches your Redpanda version. To download the latest version of rpk: curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-linux-amd64.zip To download a version other than the latest: curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/download/v<version>/rpk-linux-amd64.zip Ensure that you have the folder ~/.local/bin: mkdir -p ~/.local/bin Add it to your $PATH: export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH" Unzip the rpk files to your ~/.local/bin/ directory: unzip rpk-linux-amd64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/ Run rpk version to display the version of the rpk binary: rpk version 23.3.1 (rev b5ade3f40) If you don’t have Homebrew installed, install it. Install rpk: brew install redpanda-data/tap/redpanda Run rpk version to display the version of the rpk binary: rpk version 23.3.1 (rev b5ade3f40) This method installs the latest version of rpk, which is supported only with the latest version of Redpanda. Configure rpk to connect to your cluster using the pre-configured profile: rpk profile create --from-profile <(kubectl get configmap --namespace <namespace> redpanda-rpk -o go-template='{{ .data.profile }}') <profile-name> Replace <profile-name> with the name that you want to give this rpk profile. Test the connection: rpk cluster info -X user=redpanda-twitch-account -X pass=changethispassword -X sasl.mechanism=SCRAM-SHA-256 Explore the default Kubernetes components By default, the Redpanda Helm chart deploys the following Kubernetes components: A StatefulSet with three Pods. One PersistentVolumeClaim for each Pod, each with a capacity of 20Gi. A headless ClusterIP Service and a NodePort Service for each Kubernetes node that runs a Redpanda broker. Self-Signed TLS Certificates. StatefulSet Redpanda is a stateful application. Each Redpanda broker needs to store its own state (topic partitions) in its own storage volume. As a result, the Helm chart deploys a StatefulSet to manage the Pods in which the Redpanda brokers are running. kubectl get statefulset --namespace <namespace> Example output: NAME READY AGE redpanda 3/3 3m11s StatefulSets ensure that the state associated with a particular Pod replica is always the same, no matter how often the Pod is recreated. Each Pod is also given a unique ordinal number in its name such as redpanda-0. A Pod with a particular ordinal number is always associated with a PersistentVolumeClaim with the same number. When a Pod in the StatefulSet is deleted and recreated, it is given the same ordinal number and so it mounts the same storage volume as the deleted Pod that it replaced. kubectl get pod --namespace <namespace> Expected output: NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE redpanda-0 1/1 Running 0 6m9s redpanda-1 1/1 Running 0 6m9s redpanda-2 1/1 Running 0 6m9s redpanda-console-5ff45cdb9b-6z2vs 1/1 Running 0 5m redpanda-configuration-smqv7 0/1 Completed 0 6m9s The redpanda-configuration job updates the Redpanda runtime configuration. PersistentVolumeClaim Redpanda brokers must be able to store their data on disk. By default, the Helm chart uses the default StorageClass in the Kubernetes cluster to create a PersistentVolumeClaim for each Pod. The default StorageClass in your Kubernetes cluster depends on the Kubernetes platform that you are using. kubectl get persistentvolumeclaims --namespace <namespace> Expected output: NAME STATUS VOLUME CAPACITY ACCESS MODES STORAGECLASS AGE datadir-redpanda-0 Bound pvc-3311ade3-de84-4027-80c6-3d8347302962 20Gi RWO standard 75s datadir-redpanda-1 Bound pvc-4ea8bc03-89a6-41e4-b985-99f074995f08 20Gi RWO standard 75s datadir-redpanda-2 Bound pvc-45c3555f-43bc-48c2-b209-c284c8091c45 20Gi RWO standard 75s Service The clients writing to or reading from a given partition have to connect directly to the leader broker that hosts the partition. As a result, clients need to be able to connect directly to each Pod. To allow internal and external clients to connect to each Pod that hosts a Redpanda broker, the Helm chart configures two Services: Internal using the Headless ClusterIP External using the NodePort kubectl get service --namespace <namespace> Expected output: NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE redpanda ClusterIP None <none> <none> 5m37s redpanda-console ClusterIP 10.0.251.204 <none> 8080 5m redpanda-external NodePort 10.96.137.220 <none> 9644:31644/TCP,9094:31092/TCP,8083:30082/TCP,8080:30081/TCP 5m37s Headless ClusterIP Service The headless Service associated with a StatefulSet gives the Pods their network identity in the form of a fully qualified domain name (FQDN). Both Redpanda brokers in the same Redpanda cluster and clients within the same Kubernetes cluster use this FQDN to communicate with each other. An important requirement of distributed applications such as Redpanda is peer discovery: The ability for each broker to find other brokers in the same cluster. When each Pod is rolled out, its seed_servers field is updated with the FQDN of each Pod in the cluster so that they can discover each other. kubectl --namespace <namespace> exec redpanda-0 -c redpanda -- cat etc/redpanda/redpanda.yaml redpanda: data_directory: /var/lib/redpanda/data empty_seed_starts_cluster: false seed_servers: - host: address: redpanda-0.redpanda.<namespace>.svc.cluster.local. port: 33145 - host: address: redpanda-1.redpanda.<namespace>.svc.cluster.local. port: 33145 - host: address: redpanda-2.redpanda.<namespace>.svc.cluster.local. port: 33145 NodePort Service External access is made available by a NodePort service that opens the following ports by default: Listener Node Port Container Port Schema Registry 30081 8081 HTTP Proxy 30082 8083 Kafka API 31092 9094 Admin API 31644 9644 To learn more, see Networking and Connectivity in Kubernetes. TLS Certificates By default, TLS is enabled in the Redpanda Helm chart. The Helm chart uses cert-manager to generate four Certificate resources that provide Redpanda with self-signed certificates for internal and external connections. Having separate certificates for internal and external connections provides security isolation. If an external certificate or its corresponding private key is compromised, it doesn’t affect the security of internal communications. kubectl get certificate --namespace <namespace> NAME READY redpanda-default-cert True redpanda-default-root-certificate True redpanda-external-cert True redpanda-external-root-certificate True redpanda-default-cert: Self-signed certificate for internal communications. redpanda-default-root-certificate: Root certificate authority for the internal certificate. redpanda-external-cert: Self-signed certificate for external communications. redpanda-external-root-certificate: Root certificate authority for the external certificate. By default, all listeners are configured with the same certificate. To configure separate TLS certificates for different listeners, see TLS for Redpanda in Kubernetes. The Redpanda Helm chart provides self-signed certificates for convenience. In a production environment, it’s best to use certificates from a trusted Certificate Authority (CA) or integrate with your existing CA infrastructure. Uninstall Redpanda When you’ve finished testing Redpanda, you can uninstall it from your cluster and delete any Kubernetes resources that the Helm chart created. Helm + Operator Helm kubectl delete -f redpanda-cluster.yaml --namespace <namespace> helm uninstall redpanda-controller --namespace <namespace> kubectl delete pod --all --namespace <namespace> kubectl delete pvc --all --namespace <namespace> kubectl delete secret --all --namespace <namespace> helm uninstall redpanda --namespace <namespace> kubectl delete pod --all --namespace <namespace> kubectl delete pvc --all --namespace <namespace> kubectl delete secret --all --namespace <namespace> To remove the internal-rpk alias: unalias internal-rpk Delete the cluster To delete your Kubernetes cluster: gcloud container clusters delete <cluster-name> \ --region=<region> Troubleshoot Before troubleshooting your cluster, make sure that you have all the prerequisites. HelmRelease is not ready If you are using the Redpanda Operator, you may see the following message while waiting for a Redpanda custom resource to be deployed: NAME READY STATUS redpanda False HelmRepository 'redpanda/redpanda-repository' is not ready redpanda False HelmRelease 'redpanda/redpanda' is not ready While the deployment process can sometimes take a few minutes, a prolonged 'not ready' status may indicate an issue. Follow the steps below to investigate: Check the status of the HelmRelease: kubectl describe helmrelease <redpanda-resource-name> --namespace <namespace> Review the Redpanda Operator logs: kubectl logs -l app.kubernetes.io/name=operator -c manager --namespace <namespace> HelmRelease retries exhausted The HelmRelease retries exhausted error occurs when the Helm Controller has tried to reconcile the HelmRelease a number of times, but these attempts have failed consistently. The Helm Controller watches for changes in HelmRelease objects. When changes are detected, it tries to reconcile the state defined in the HelmRelease with the state in the cluster. The process of reconciliation includes installation, upgrade, testing, rollback or uninstallation of Helm releases. You may see this error due to: Incorrect configuration in the HelmRelease. Issues with the chart, such as a non-existent chart version or the chart repository not being accessible. Missing dependencies or prerequisites required by the chart. Issues with the underlying Kubernetes cluster, such as insufficient resources or connectivity issues. To debug this error do the following: Check the status of the HelmRelease: kubectl describe helmrelease <cluster-name> --namespace <namespace> Review the Redpanda Operator logs: kubectl logs -l app.kubernetes.io/name=operator -c manager --namespace <namespace> When you find and fix the error, you must use the Flux CLI, fluxctl, to suspend and resume the reconciliation process: Install Flux CLI. Suspend the HelmRelease: flux suspend helmrelease <cluster-name> --namespace <namespace> Resume the HelmRelease: flux resume helmrelease <cluster-name> --namespace <namespace> Crash loop backoffs If a broker crashes after startup, or gets stuck in a crash loop, it could produce progressively more stored state that uses additional disk space and takes more time for each restart to process. To prevent infinite crash loops, the Redpanda Helm chart sets the crash_loop_limit node property to 5. The crash loop limit is the number of consecutive crashes that can happen within one hour of each other. After Redpanda reaches this limit, it will not start until its internal consecutive crash counter is reset to zero. In Kubernetes, the Pod running Redpanda remains in a CrashLoopBackoff state until its internal consecutive crash counter is reset to zero. To troubleshoot a crash loop backoff: Check the Redpanda logs from the most recent crashes: kubectl logs <pod-name> --namespace <namespace> Kubernetes retains logs only for the current and the previous instance of a container. This limitation makes it difficult to access logs from earlier crashes, which may contain vital clues about the root cause of the issue. Given these log retention limitations, setting up a centralized logging system is crucial. Systems such as Loki or Datadog can capture and store logs from all containers, ensuring you have access to historical data. Resolve the issue that led to the crash loop backoff. Reset the crash counter to zero to allow Redpanda to restart. You can do any of the following to reset the counter: Update the redpanda.yaml configuration file. You can make changes to any of the following sections in the Redpanda Helm chart to trigger an update: config.cluster config.node config.tunable Delete the startup_log file in the broker’s data directory. kubectl exec <pod-name> --namespace <namespace> -- rm /var/lib/redpanda/data/startup_log It might be challenging to execute this command within a Pod that is in a CrashLoopBackoff state due to the limited time during which the Pod is available before it restarts. Wrapping the command in a loop might work. Wait one hour since the last crash. The crash counter resets after one hour. To avoid future crash loop backoffs and manage the accumulation of small segments effectively: Monitor the size and number of segments regularly. Optimize your Redpanda configuration for segment management. Consider implementing Tiered Storage to manage data more efficiently. StatefulSet never rolls out If the StatefulSet Pods remain in a pending state, they are waiting for resources to become available. To identify the Pods that are pending, use the following command: kubectl get pod --namespace <namespace> The response includes a list of Pods in the StatefulSet and their status. To view logs for a specific Pod, use the following command. kubectl logs -f <pod-name> --namespace <namespace> You can use the output to debug your deployment. Unable to mount volume If you see volume mounting errors in the Pod events or in the Redpanda logs, ensure that each of your Pods has a volume available in which to store data. If you’re using StorageClasses with dynamic provisioners (default), ensure they exist: kubectl get storageclass If you’re using PersistentVolumes, ensure that you have one PersistentVolume available for each Redpanda broker, and that each one has the storage capacity that’s set in storage.persistentVolume.size: kubectl get persistentvolume --namespace <namespace> To learn how to configure different storage volumes, see Configure Storage. Failed to pull image When deploying the Redpanda Helm chart, you may encounter Docker rate limit issues because the default registry URL is not recognized as a Docker Hub URL. The domain docker.redpanda.com is used for statistical purposes, such as tracking the number of downloads. It mirrors Docker Hub’s content while providing specific analytics for Redpanda. Failed to pull image "docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/redpanda:v<version>": rpc error: code = Unknown desc = failed to pull and unpack image "docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/redpanda:v<version>": failed to copy: httpReadSeeker: failed open: unexpected status code 429 Too Many Requests - Server message: toomanyrequests: You have reached your pull rate limit. You may increase the limit by authenticating and upgrading: https://www.docker.com/increase-rate-limit To fix this error, do one of the following: Replace the image.repository value in the Helm chart with docker.io/redpandadata/redpanda. Switching to Docker Hub avoids the rate limit issues associated with docker.redpanda.com. Helm + Operator Helm redpanda-cluster.yaml apiVersion: cluster.redpanda.com/v1alpha1 kind: Redpanda metadata: name: redpanda spec: chartRef: {} clusterSpec: image: repository: docker.io/redpandadata/redpanda kubectl apply -f redpanda-cluster.yaml --namespace <namespace> --values --set docker-repo.yaml image: repository: docker.io/redpandadata/redpanda helm upgrade --install redpanda redpanda/redpanda --namespace <namespace> --create-namespace \ --values docker-repo.yaml --reuse-values helm upgrade --install redpanda redpanda/redpanda --namespace <namespace> --create-namespace \ --set image.repository=docker.io/redpandadata/redpanda Authenticate to Docker Hub by logging in with your Docker Hub credentials. The docker.redpanda.com site acts as a reflector for Docker Hub. As a result, when you log in with your Docker Hub credentials, you will bypass the rate limit issues. Dig not defined This error means that you are using an unsupported version of Helm: Error: parse error at (redpanda/templates/statefulset.yaml:203): function "dig" not defined To fix this error, ensure that you are using the minimum required version: 3.10.0. helm version Repository name already exists If you see this error, remove the redpanda chart repository, then try installing it again. helm repo remove redpanda helm repo add redpanda https://charts.redpanda.com helm repo update Fatal error during checker "Data directory is writable" execution This error appears when Redpanda does not have write access to your configured storage volume under storage in the Helm chart. Error: fatal error during checker "Data directory is writable" execution: open /var/lib/redpanda/data/test_file: permission denied To fix this error, set statefulset.initContainers.setDataDirOwnership.enabled to true so that the initContainer can set the correct permissions on the data directories. Cannot patch "redpanda" with kind StatefulSet This error appears when you run helm upgrade with the --values flag but do not include all your previous overrides. Error: UPGRADE FAILED: cannot patch "redpanda" with kind StatefulSet: StatefulSet.apps "redpanda" is invalid: spec: Forbidden: updates to statefulset spec for fields other than 'replicas', 'template', 'updateStrategy', 'persistentVolumeClaimRetentionPolicy' and 'minReadySeconds' are forbidden To fix this error, do one of the following: Include all the value overrides from the previous installation or upgrade using either the --set or the --values flags. Use the --reuse-values flag. Do not use the --reuse-values flag to upgrade from one version of the Helm chart to another. This flag stops Helm from using any new values in the upgraded chart. Cannot patch "redpanda-console" with kind Deployment This error appears if you try to upgrade your deployment and you already have console.enabled set to true. Error: UPGRADE FAILED: cannot patch "redpanda-console" with kind Deployment: Deployment.apps "redpanda-console" is invalid: spec.selector: Invalid value: v1.LabelSelector{MatchLabels:map[string]string{"app.kubernetes.io/instance":"redpanda", "app.kubernetes.io/name":"console"}, MatchExpressions:[]v1.LabelSelectorRequirement(nil)}: field is immutable To fix this error, set console.enabled to false so that Helm doesn’t try to deploy Redpanda Console again. Helm is in a pending-rollback state An interrupted Helm upgrade process can leave your Helm release in a pending-rollback state. This state prevents further actions like upgrades, rollbacks, or deletions through standard Helm commands. To fix this: Identify the Helm release that’s in a pending-rollback state: helm list --namespace <namespace> --all Look for releases with a status of pending-rollback. These are the ones that need intervention. Verify the Secret’s status to avoid affecting the wrong resource: kubectl --namespace <namespace> get secret --show-labels Identify the Secret associated with your Helm release by its pending-rollback status in the labels. Ensure you have correctly identified the Secret to avoid unintended consequences. Deleting the wrong Secret could impact other deployments or services. Delete the Secret to clear the pending-rollback state: kubectl --namespace <namespace> delete secret -l status=pending-rollback After clearing the pending-rollback state: Retry the upgrade: Restart the upgrade process. You should investigate the initial failure to avoid getting into the pending-rollback state again. Perform a rollback: If you need to roll back to a previous release, use helm rollback <release-name> <revision> to revert to a specific, stable release version. For more troubleshooting steps, see Troubleshoot Redpanda in Kubernetes. Next steps Try an example in Redpanda Labs Learn more about Redpanda Console Learn more about rpk When you’re ready to use a registered domain, make sure to remove your entries from the /etc/hosts file, and see Configure External Access through a NodePort Service. Suggested reading Networking and Connectivity in Kubernetes Configure TLS for Redpanda in Kubernetes Configure SASL for Redpanda in Kubernetes Redpanda Helm Specification Redpanda CRD Reference Redpanda Console README on GitHub Suggested labs Set Up GitOps for the Redpanda Helm ChartSearch all labs Back to top × Simple online edits For simple changes, such as fixing a typo, you can edit the content directly on GitHub. Edit on GitHub Or, open an issue to let us know about something that you want us to change. Open an issue Contribution guide For extensive content updates, or if you prefer to work locally, read our contribution guide . 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