📦

ImagePullBackOff

Cluster cannot pull container image.

Reviewed: ·Tested on: Kubernetes 1.29, Terraform 1.8, Ubuntu 22.04

Symptoms

  • ImagePullBackOff
  • ErrImagePull
  • pull access denied
  • manifest unknown

1Diagnose pull failure

kubectl describe pod <pod> -n <ns> | grep -A10 Events
kubectl get secret -n <ns>
Snippet: image pull →

2Add registry pull secret

# Private registry — create pull secret:
kubectl create secret docker-registry regcred \
  --docker-server=registry.example.com \
  --docker-username=... --docker-password=... -n <ns>
# Add imagePullSecrets to ServiceAccount or Pod spec

Related

kubernetesdockerk8s-deployment-service