Struggling to get controller running in local KIND cluster

[james-downing]

Hey folks, I'm trying to kick off a new Issuer project with this as a base. I thought I'd make sure I'm working off a solid foundation however so I've been trying to get the sample configuration running first...

Running the controller either via the e2e tests make test-e2e or via make deploy results in the controller consistently restarting due to the following error:

2025-02-28T16:45:17Z	INFO	Version	{"version": ""}
2025-02-28T16:45:17Z	INFO	setup	starting	{"version": "", "enable-leader-election": true, "metrics-addr": ":8443", "cluster-resource-namespace": "sample-external-issuer-system"}
2025-02-28T16:45:27Z	ERROR	setup	unable to create Signer controllers	{"error": "CertificateRequestReconciler: failed to get API group resources: unable to retrieve the complete list of server APIs: cert-manager.io/v1: Get \"https://10.96.0.1:443/apis/cert-manager.io/v1\": net/http: TLS handshake timeout"}

• this is a default KIND cluster with no custom configuration
• All the prerequisites are running and seem to be working (e2e tests now check this anyway):

kgp -n cert-manager
NAME                                       READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
cert-manager-86d7f8cc57-bh9g5              1/1     Running   0          67m
cert-manager-cainjector-5df756bf7d-p2w8f   1/1     Running   0          67m
cert-manager-webhook-79f6db7579-v6sxh      1/1     Running   0          67m

• K8s version:

kubectl version
WARNING: This version information is deprecated and will be replaced with the output from kubectl version --short.  Use --output=yaml|json to get the full version.
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"27", GitVersion:"v1.27.2", GitCommit:"7f6f68fdabc4df88cfea2dcf9a19b2b830f1e647", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2023-05-17T14:20:07Z", GoVersion:"go1.20.4", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"darwin/arm64"}
Kustomize Version: v5.0.1
Server Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"27", GitVersion:"v1.27.3", GitCommit:"25b4e43193bcda6c7328a6d147b1fb73a33f1598", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2023-06-15T00:38:14Z", GoVersion:"go1.20.5", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/arm64"}

• Running the latest build from Re-scaffold with kubebuilder 4.5.0 #55

If I'm missing anything obvious, do let me know. Thanks!

[wallrj]

Sorry for delayed reply.

The two make targets work for me, on an Ubuntu Linux laptop.

make deploy

make deploy only creates the Deployment and it is up to you to load the image and install cert-manager.
Here's how you can do that:

make docker-build IMG=example.com/sample-external-issuer:v0.0.1
kind create cluster
kind load docker-image example.com/sample-external-issuer:v0.0.1
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.17.2/cert-manager.yaml
make deploy IMG=example.com/sample-external-issuer:v0.0.1

$ kubectl logs -n sample-external-issuer-system deployments/sample-external-issuer-controller-manager
2025-04-30T11:43:08Z    INFO    Version {"version": ""}
2025-04-30T11:43:08Z    INFO    setup   starting        {"version": "", "enable-leader-election": true, "metrics-addr": ":8443", "cluster-resource-namespace": "sample-external-issuer-system"}
2025-04-30T11:43:08Z    INFO    setup   starting manager
2025-04-30T11:43:08Z    INFO    controller-runtime.metrics      Starting metrics server
2025-04-30T11:43:08Z    INFO    starting server {"name": "health probe", "addr": "[::]:8081"}
2025-04-30T11:43:08Z    INFO    setup   disabling http/2
2025-04-30T11:43:08Z    INFO    attempting to acquire leader lease sample-external-issuer-system/54c549fd.example.com...
2025-04-30T11:43:08Z    INFO    successfully acquired lease sample-external-issuer-system/54c549fd.example.com
2025-04-30T11:43:08Z    DEBUG   events  sample-external-issuer-controller-manager-7896b8cbbf-vwnrh_4d3379dd-7bf4-4a31-9313-5fee2eaf816d became leader        {"type": "Normal", "object": {"kind":"Lease","namespace":"sample-external-issuer-system","name":"54c549fd.example.com","uid":"43350064-6324-41aa-b9ab-d8f3ff1c099d","apiVersion":"coordination.k8s.io/v1","resourceVersion":"624"}, "reason": "LeaderElection"}
2025-04-30T11:43:08Z    INFO    Starting EventSource    {"controller": "certificaterequest", "controllerGroup": "cert-manager.io", "controllerKind": "CertificateRequest", "source": "kind source: *v1.CertificateRequest"}

make test-e2e

make test-e2e automatically builds the Docker image and loads it into the Kind cluster and installs the cert-manager CRDs before running the tests.

kind create cluster
make test-e2e

=== RUN   TestE2E
  Starting sample-external-issuer integration test suite
Running Suite: e2e suite - /home/richard/projects/cert-manager/sample-external-issuer/test/e2e
==============================================================================================
Random Seed: 1746011902

Will run 3 of 3 specs
------------------------------
[BeforeSuite]
/home/richard/projects/cert-manager/sample-external-issuer/test/e2e/e2e_suite_test.go:59
  STEP: Ensure that Prometheus is enabled @ 04/30/25 12:18:22.266
  STEP: building the manager(Operator) image @ 04/30/25 12:18:22.266
  running: make docker-build IMG=example.com/sample-external-issuer:v0.0.1
  STEP: loading the manager(Operator) image on Kind @ 04/30/25 12:20:30.155
  running: kind load docker-image example.com/sample-external-issuer:v0.0.1 --name kind
  STEP: checking if prometheus is installed already @ 04/30/25 12:20:34.839
  running: kubectl get crds -o custom-columns=NAME:.metadata.name
  Installing Prometheus Operator...
  running: kubectl create -f https://github.com/prometheus-operator/prometheus-operator/releases/download/v0.79.2/bundle.yaml
  STEP: checking if cert manager is installed already @ 04/30/25 12:20:37.805
  running: kubectl get crds
  Installing CertManager...
  running: kubectl apply -f https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.16.3/cert-manager.yaml
  running: kubectl wait deployment.apps/cert-manager-webhook --for condition=Available --namespace cert-manager --timeout 5m
[BeforeSuite] PASSED [164.035 seconds]
------------------------------
Manager Manager should run successfully
/home/richard/projects/cert-manager/sample-external-issuer/test/e2e/e2e_test.go:141
...
Ran 3 of 3 Specs in 225.989 seconds
SUCCESS! -- 3 Passed | 0 Failed | 0 Pending | 0 Skipped
--- PASS: TestE2E (225.99s)
PASS
ok      github.com/cert-manager/sample-external-issuer/test/e2e 225.994s

[wallrj]

@erikgb I hindsight we should have updated the README instructions in #55