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Troubleshooting the GitLab agent for Kubernetes

When you are using the GitLab agent for Kubernetes, you might experience issues you need to troubleshoot.

You can start by viewing the service logs:

kubectl logs -f -l=app.kubernetes.io/name=gitlab-agent -n gitlab-agent

If you are a GitLab administrator, you can also view the GitLab agent server logs.

Transport: Error while dialing failed to WebSocket dial

{
  "level": "warn",
  "time": "2020-11-04T10:14:39.368Z",
  "msg": "GetConfiguration failed",
  "error": "rpc error: code = Unavailable desc = connection error: desc = \"transport: Error while dialing failed to WebSocket dial: failed to send handshake request: Get \\\"https://gitlab-kas:443/-/kubernetes-agent\\\": dial tcp: lookup gitlab-kas on 10.60.0.10:53: no such host\""
}

This error occurs when there are connectivity issues between the kas-address and your agent pod. To fix this issue, make sure the kas-address is accurate.

{
  "level": "error",
  "time": "2021-06-25T21:15:45.335Z",
  "msg": "Reverse tunnel",
  "mod_name": "reverse_tunnel",
  "error": "Connect(): rpc error: code = Unavailable desc = connection error: desc= \"transport: Error while dialing failed to WebSocket dial: expected handshake response status code 101 but got 301\""
}

This error occurs when the kas-address doesn't include a trailing slash. To fix this issue, make sure that the wss or ws URL ends with a trailing slash, like wss://GitLab.host.tld:443/-/kubernetes-agent/ or ws://GitLab.host.tld:80/-/kubernetes-agent/.

Error while dialing failed to WebSocket dial: failed to send handshake request

{
  "level": "warn",
  "time": "2020-10-30T09:50:51.173Z",
  "msg": "GetConfiguration failed",
  "error": "rpc error: code = Unavailable desc = connection error: desc = \"transport: Error while dialing failed to WebSocket dial: failed to send handshake request: Get \\\"https://GitLabhost.tld:443/-/kubernetes-agent\\\": net/http: HTTP/1.x transport connection broken: malformed HTTP response \\\"\\\\x00\\\\x00\\\\x06\\\\x04\\\\x00\\\\x00\\\\x00\\\\x00\\\\x00\\\\x00\\\\x05\\\\x00\\\\x00@\\\\x00\\\"\""
}

This error occurs when you configured wss as kas-address on the agent side, but the agent server is not available at wss. To fix this issue, make sure the same schemes are configured on both sides.

Decompressor is not installed for grpc-encoding

{
  "level": "warn",
  "time": "2020-11-05T05:25:46.916Z",
  "msg": "GetConfiguration.Recv failed",
  "error": "rpc error: code = Unimplemented desc = grpc: Decompressor is not installed for grpc-encoding \"gzip\""
}

This error occurs when the version of the agent is newer that the version of the agent server (KAS). To fix it, make sure that both agentk and the agent server are the same version.

Certificate signed by unknown authority

{
  "level": "error",
  "time": "2021-02-25T07:22:37.158Z",
  "msg": "Reverse tunnel",
  "mod_name": "reverse_tunnel",
  "error": "Connect(): rpc error: code = Unavailable desc = connection error: desc = \"transport: Error while dialing failed to WebSocket dial: failed to send handshake request: Get \\\"https://GitLabhost.tld:443/-/kubernetes-agent/\\\": x509: certificate signed by unknown authority\""
}

This error occurs when your GitLab instance is using a certificate signed by an internal certificate authority that is unknown to the agent.

To fix this issue, you can present the CA certificate file to the agent by customizing the Helm installation. Add --set-file config.caCert=my-custom-ca.pem to the helm install command. The file should be a valid PEM or DER-encoded certificate.

When you deploy agentk with a set config.caCert value, the certificate is added to configmap and the certificate file is mounted in /etc/ssl/certs.

$ kubectl get configmap -lapp=gitlab-agent -o yaml
apiVersion: v1
items:
- apiVersion: v1
  data:
    ca.crt: |-
      -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
      MIIFmzCCA4OgAwIBAgIUE+FvXfDpJ869UgJitjRX7HHT84cwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEL
      ...truncated certificate...
      GHZCTQkbQyUwBWJOUyOxW1lro4hWqtP4xLj8Dpq1jfopH72h0qTGkX0XhFGiSaM=
      -----END CERTIFICATE-----
  kind: ConfigMap
  metadata:
    annotations:
      meta.helm.sh/release-name: self-signed
      meta.helm.sh/release-namespace: gitlab-agent-self-signed
    creationTimestamp: "2023-03-07T20:12:26Z"
    labels:
      app: gitlab-agent
      app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: Helm
      app.kubernetes.io/name: gitlab-agent
      app.kubernetes.io/version: v15.9.0
      helm.sh/chart: gitlab-agent-1.11.0
    name: self-signed-gitlab-agent
    resourceVersion: "263184207"
kind: List

You might see a similar error in the agent server (KAS) logs of your GitLab application server:

{"level":"error","time":"2023-03-07T20:19:48.151Z","msg":"AgentInfo()","grpc_service":"gitlab.agent.agent_configuration.rpc.AgentConfiguration","grpc_method":"GetConfiguration","error":"Get \"https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/internal/kubernetes/agent_info\": x509: certificate signed by unknown authority"}

To fix it, install your internal CA's public certificate in the /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs directory.

Alternatively, you can configure the agent server (KAS) to read the certificate from a custom directory. Add the following configuration to /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

gitlab_kas['env'] = {
   'SSL_CERT_DIR' => "/opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs/"
 }

To apply the changes:

  1. Reconfigure GitLab.

    sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure

  2. Restart gitlab-kas.

    gitlab-ctl restart gitlab-kas

Failed to perform vulnerability scan on workload: jobs.batch already exists

{
  "level": "error",
  "time": "2022-06-22T21:03:04.769Z",
  "msg": "Failed to perform vulnerability scan on workload",
  "mod_name": "starboard_vulnerability",
  "error": "running scan job: creating job: jobs.batch \"scan-vulnerabilityreport-b8d497769\" already exists"
}

The GitLab agent performs vulnerability scans by creating a job to scan each workload. If a scan is interrupted, these jobs may be left behind and need to be cleaned up before more jobs can be run. You can clean up these jobs by running:

kubectl delete jobs -l app.kubernetes.io/managed-by=starboard -n gitlab-agent

We're working on making the cleanup of these jobs more robust.

Parse error during installation

When you install the agent, you might encounter an error that states:

Error: parse error at (gitlab-agent/templates/observability-secret.yaml:1): unclosed action

This error is typically caused by an incompatible version of Helm. To resolve the issue, ensure that you are using a version of Helm compatible with your version of Kubernetes.

GitLab Agent Server: Unauthorized error on Dashboard for Kubernetes

An error like GitLab Agent Server: Unauthorized. Trace ID: <...> on the Dashboard for Kubernetes page might be caused by one of the following:

  • The user_access entry in the agent configuration file doesn't exist or is wrong. To resolve, see Grant users Kubernetes access.

  • There are multiple _gitlab_kas cookies in the browser and sent to KAS. The most likely cause is multiple GitLab instances hosted on the same site.

    For example, gitlab.com set a _gitlab_kas cookie targeted for kas.gitlab.com, but the cookie is also sent to kas.staging.gitlab.com, which causes the error on staging.gitlab.com.

    To temporarily resolve, delete the _gitlab_kas cookie for gitlab.com from the browser cookie store. Issue 418998 proposes a fix for this known issue.

  • GitLab and KAS run on different sites. For example, GitLab on gitlab.example.com and KAS on kas.example.com. GitLab does not support this use case. For details, see issue 416436.

Agent version mismatch

In GitLab, on the Agent tab of the Kubernetes clusters page, you might see a warning that says Agent version mismatch: The agent versions do not match each other across your cluster's pods.

This warning might be caused by an older version of the agent being cached by the agent server for Kubernetes (kas). Because kas periodically deletes outdated agent versions, you should wait at least 20 minutes for the agent and GitLab to reconcile.

If the warning persists, update the agent installed on your cluster.