IBM Support

ImagePullBackOff error on noobaa-core pod in Guardium Data Security Center

Troubleshooting


Problem

When you install or upgrade to IBM Guardium Data Security Center version 3.7.0, the noobaa-core pod might fail to start successfully due to an image pull error.

Symptom

When you inspect the pods by using the following command, the ImagePullBackOff error is displayed as shown in the following example.
 
oc get pods | grep nooba

noobaa-core-0                              0/1     ImagePullBackOff   0       3h3m 
noobaa-db-pg-0                             1/1     Running            0       3h3m 
noobaa-endpoint-867d9b9cf9-cbv6f           1/1     Running            0       3h3m 
noobaa-endpoint-867d9b9cf9-nhxk9           1/1     Running            0       3h3m 
noobaa-operator-689f446475-fzf8h           1/1     Running            0       3h3m 

Cause

This error is caused when the noobaa-core service account is missing the IBM entitlement key. The entitlement key is needed to authenticate and pull the protected noobaa-core image from the IBM Container Registry. Without this key, the image pull fails and leads to the ImagePullBackOff error.

Diagnosing The Problem

When you run the kubectl describe command on the noobaa-core pod, the output displays a series of error messages as shown in the following example.
Normal    BackOff     5m20s (x5 over 5m50s)   kubelet      Back-off pulling image "cp.icr.io/cp/ibm-guardium-data-security-center/noobaa-core@sha256:e0925c59c22123ac7173a98d7ab7d16a2c079d99b1c35b3602df755670bd723f"
Warning   Failed      5m20s (x5 over 5m50s)   kubelet      Error: ImagePullBackOff
Warning   Failed      5m20s (x3 over 5m49s)   kubelet      Error: ImagePullBackOff
Normal    Pulling     5m7s (x3 over 5m50s)    kubelet      Pulling image "cp.icr.io/cp/ibm-guardium-data-security-center/noobaa-core@sha256:e0925c59c22123ac7173a98d7ab7d16a2c079d99b1c35b3602df755670bd723f"
Warning   Failed      5m7s (x3 over 5m50s)    kubelet      Failed to pull image "cp.icr.io/cp/ibm-guardium-data-security-center/noobaa-core@sha256:e0925c59c22123ac7173a98d7ab7d16a2c079d99b1c35b3602df755670bd723f": Requesting bearer token: invalid status code from registry 400 (Bad Request)
Warning   Failed      5m7s (x3 over 5m50s)    kubelet      Error: ErrImagePull
Normal    BackOff     43s (x22 over 5m49s)    kubelet      Back-off pulling image "cp.icr.io/cp/ibm-guardium-data-security-center/noobaa-core@sha256:e0925c59c22123ac7173a98d7ab7d16a2c079d99b1c35b3602df755670bd723f"

Resolving The Problem

Add the IBM entitlement key as an image pull secret by applying the following patch to the noobaa-core service account.
export NAMESPACE=<your-namespace>
oc patch sa noobaa-core -n ${NAMESPACE} --type=json -p='[{"op": "add", "path": "/imagePullSecrets/-", "value": {"name": "ibm-entitlement-key"}}]'
oc delete pod noobaa-core-0 -n ${NAMESPACE}

 

Document Location

Worldwide

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Document Information

Modified date:
01 April 2025

UID

ibm17229778