kata-containers/docs/how-to/run-kata-with-crictl.md

Working with crictl

What's cri-tools

cri-tools provides debugging and validation tools for Kubelet Container Runtime Interface (CRI).

cri-tools includes two tools: crictl and critest. crictl is the CLI for Kubelet CRI, in this document, we will show how to use crictl to run Pods in Kata containers.

Note: cri-tools is only used for debugging and validation purpose, and don't use it to run production workloads.

Note: For how to install and configure cri-tools with CRI runtimes like containerd or CRI-O, please also refer to other howtos.

Use crictl run Pods in Kata containers

Sample config files in this document can be found here.

Run busybox Pod

Run pod sandbox with config file

$ sudo crictl runp -r kata sandbox_config.json
16a62b035940f9c7d79fd53e93902d15ad21f7f9b3735f1ac9f51d16539b836b

$ sudo crictl pods
POD ID              CREATED             STATE               NAME                NAMESPACE           ATTEMPT
16a62b035940f       21 seconds ago      Ready               busybox-pod                             0

Create container in the pod sandbox with config file

$ sudo crictl create 16a62b035940f container_config.json sandbox_config.json 
e6ca0e0f7f532686236b8b1f549e4878e4fe32ea6b599a5d684faf168b429202

List containers and check the container is in Created state:

$ sudo crictl ps -a
CONTAINER           IMAGE                              CREATED             STATE               NAME                ATTEMPT             POD ID
e6ca0e0f7f532       docker.io/library/busybox:latest   19 seconds ago      Created             busybox-container   0                   16a62b035940f

Start container

$ sudo crictl start e6ca0e0f7f532
e6ca0e0f7f532

List containers and we can see that the container state has changed from Created to Running:

$ sudo crictl ps
CONTAINER           IMAGE                              CREATED              STATE               NAME                ATTEMPT             POD ID
e6ca0e0f7f532       docker.io/library/busybox:latest   About a minute ago   Running             busybox-container   0                   16a62b035940f

And last we can exec into busybox container:

$ sudo crictl exec -it e6ca0e0f7f532 sh

And run commands in it:

/ # hostname 
busybox_host
/ # id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root)

Run redis Pod

In this example, we will create two Pods: one is for redis server, and another one is redis client.

Create redis-server Pod

It's also possible to start a container within a single command:

$ sudo crictl run -r kata redis_server_container_config.json redis_server_sandbox_config.json
bb36e05c599125842c5193909c4de186b1cee3818f5d17b951b6a0422681ce4b

Create redis-client Pod

$ sudo crictl run -r kata redis_client_container_config.json redis_client_sandbox_config.json
e344346c5414e3f51f97f20b2262e0b7afe457750e94dc0edb109b94622fc693

After the new container started, we can check the running Pods and containers.

$ sudo crictl pods
POD ID              CREATED              STATE               NAME                NAMESPACE           ATTEMPT
469d08a7950e3       30 seconds ago       Ready               redis-client-pod                        0
02c12fdb08219       About a minute ago   Ready               redis-server-pod                        0

$ sudo crictl ps
CONTAINER           IMAGE                                  CREATED              STATE               NAME                ATTEMPT             POD ID
e344346c5414e       docker.io/library/redis:6.0.8-alpine   35 seconds ago       Running             redis-client        0                   469d08a7950e3
bb36e05c59912       docker.io/library/redis:6.0.8-alpine   About a minute ago   Running             redis-server        0                   02c12fdb08219

Check redis server is working

To connect to the redis-server. First we need to get the redis-server's IP address.

$ server=$(sudo crictl inspectp 02c12fdb08219 | jq .status.network.ip | tr -d '"' )
$ echo $server
172.19.0.118

Launch redis-cli in the new Pod and connect server running at 172.19.0.118.

$ sudo crictl exec -it e344346c5414e redis-cli -h $server
172.19.0.118:6379> get test-key
(nil)
172.19.0.118:6379> set test-key test-value
OK
172.19.0.118:6379> get test-key
"test-value"

Then back to redis-server, check if the test-key is set in server.

$ sudo crictl exec -it bb36e05c59912 redis-cli get test-key
"test-val"

Returned test-val is just set by redis-cli in redis-client Pod.