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Troubleshooting

This section contains some general troubleshooting for your Anchore Enterprise instance. When troubleshooting Anchore Enterprise, the recommended approach is to first verify all Anchore services are up, use the event subsystem to narrow down particular issues, and then navigate to the logs for specific services to find out more information.

Throughout this section, AnchoreCTL commands will be executed to assist with troubleshooting. For more information AnchoreCTL, please reference the AnchoreCTL section.

1 - Smoke Testing

This term typically refers to a testing methodology which validates critical or crucial functionality of software. Versions of AnchoreCTL post-5.6.0 include a smoke-tests option, which can be used to validate general functionality of your Anchore Enterprise.

We recommend using this mechanism to validate functionality after upgrades.

Tip: the test check-admin-credentials will look for an admin user in the admin account context as defined in your anchorectl.yaml

./anchorectl system smoke-tests run
 ⠇ Running smoke tests
...
 ✔ Ran smoke tests
┌───────────────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────────┬────────┬────────┐
│ NAME                                  │ DESCRIPTION                                     │ RESULT │ STDERR │
├───────────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────┼────────┤
│ wait-for-system                       │ Wait for the system to be ready                 │ pass   │        │
│ check-admin-credentials               │ Check anchorectl credentials to run smoke tests │ pass   │        │
│ create-test-account                   │ Create a test account                           │ pass   │        │
│ list-test-policies                    │ List the test policies                          │ pass   │        │
│ get-test-policy                       │ Get the test policy                             │ pass   │        │
│ activate-test-default-policy          │ Activate the test default policy                │ pass   │        │
│ create-test-image                     │ Create a test image and wait for analysis       │ pass   │        │
│ get-test-image                        │ Get the test image                              │ pass   │        │
│ activate-test-subscription            │ Activate a test subscription                    │ pass   │        │
│ get-test-subscription                 │ Get the test subscription                       │ pass   │        │
│ deactivate-test-vuln-subscription     │ Deactivate the vuln subscription                │ pass   │        │
│ deactivate-test-policy-subscription   │ Deactivate the policy subscription              │ pass   │        │
│ deactivate-test-tag-subscription      │ Deactivate the tag subscription                 │ pass   │        │
│ deactivate-test-analysis-subscription │ Deactivate the analysis subscription            │ pass   │        │
│ check-test-image                      │ Check the test image                            │ pass   │        │
│ get-test-image-vulnerabilities        │ Get the test image vulnerabilities              │ pass   │        │
│ delete-test-image                     │ Delete the test image                           │ pass   │        │
│ disable-test-account                  │ Disable the test account                        │ pass   │        │
│ delete-test-account                   │ Delete the test account                         │ pass   │        │
└───────────────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────────────────┴────────┴────────┘

2 - Viewing Logs

Anchore services produce detailed logs that contain information about user interactions, internal processes, warnings and errors. The verbosity of the logs is controlled using the log_level setting in config.yaml (for manual installations) or the corresponding ANCHORE_LOG_LEVEL environment variable (for docker compose or Helm installations) for each service.

The log levels are DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, and FATAL, where the default is INFO. Most of the time, the default level is sufficient as the logs will container WARN, ERROR and FATAL messages as well. But for deep troubleshooting, it is always recommended to increase the log level to DEBUG in order to ensure the availability of the maximum amount of information.

Anchore logs can be accessed by inspecting the docker logs for any anchore service container using the regular docker logging mechanisms, which typically default to displaying to the stdout/stderr of the containers themselves - for example:

# docker ps
...
33c809f1803a        anchore/anchore-engine:latest       "/docker-entrypoint.…"   22 hours ago        Up 22 hours (healthy)   8228/tcp                         aevolume_engine-catalog_1
...

# docker logs aevolume_engine-analyzer_1
[service:worker] 2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.twisted/makeService()] [INFO] Initializing configuration
[service:worker] 2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.twisted/makeService()] [INFO] Initializing logging
[service:worker] 2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.service/initialize()] [DEBUG] Invoking instance-specific handler registration
[service:worker] 2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.service/_register_instance_handlers()] [INFO] Registering api handlers
[service:worker] 2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.service/_process_stage_handlers()] [INFO] Processing init handlers for bootsrap stage: pre_config
[service:worker] 2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.service/_process_stage_handlers()] [DEBUG] Executing 0 stage pre_config handlers
[service:worker] 2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.service/_configure()] [INFO] Loading and initializing global configuration
[service:worker] 2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.service/_configure()] [INFO] Configuration complete
...
...

The logs themselves are also persisted as logfiles inside the Anchore service containers. Executing a shell into any Anchore service container and navigating to /var/log/anchore, you will find the service log files. For example, using the same analyzer container service as described previously.

# docker exec -t -i  aevolume_engine-analyzer_1 /bin/bash
[anchore@687818c10b93 anchore-engine]$ cat /var/log/anchore/anchore-worker.log
2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.twisted/makeService()] [INFO] Initializing configuration
2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.twisted/makeService()] [INFO] Initializing logging
2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.service/initialize()] [DEBUG] Invoking instance-specific handler registration
2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.service/_register_instance_handlers()] [INFO] Registering api handlers
2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.service/_process_stage_handlers()] [INFO] Processing init handlers for bootsrap stage: pre_config
2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.service/_process_stage_handlers()] [DEBUG] Executing 0 stage pre_config handlers
2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.service/_configure()] [INFO] Loading and initializing global configuration
2019-12-06 00:54:20+0000 [-] [MainThread] [anchore_engine.service/_configure()] [INFO] Configuration complete
...
...

If you are using Kubernetes to run Anchore Enterprise, you can retrieve the logs from the service pods directly using kubectl commands:

Tip: You can find the desired pod name with kubectl get pods

# k8s-inventory kubectl logs -n <your-namespace> <your-anchore-pod-name>
[uvicorn:anchore-enterprise-apiext] [2024-06-05T19:26:51.508107+00:00] [MainProcess] [MainThread] [INFO] [asyncio.runners/run():190] | 10.244.1.1:55706 - "GET /health HTTP/1.1" 200
[uvicorn:anchore-enterprise-apiext] [2024-06-05T19:26:54.080546+00:00] [MainProcess] [MainThread] [INFO] [asyncio.runners/run():190] | 10.244.1.2:56838 - "GET /health HTTP/1.1" 200
[uvicorn:anchore-enterprise-apiext] [2024-06-05T19:26:54.085999+00:00] [MainProcess] [MainThread] [INFO] [asyncio.runners/run():190] | 10.244.1.2:56854 - "GET /health HTTP/1.1" 200
[uvicorn:anchore-enterprise-apiext] [2024-06-05T19:26:54.089404+00:00] [MainProcess] [MainThread] [INFO] [asyncio.runners/run():190] | 10.244.1.2:56860 - "GET /version HTTP/1.1" 200
[uvicorn:anchore-enterprise-apiext] [2024-06-05T19:26:56.773285+00:00] [MainProcess] [MainThread] [INFO] [asyncio.runners/run():190] | 10.244.1.1:46424 - "GET /health HTTP/1.1" 200
[uvicorn:anchore-enterprise-apiext] [2024-06-05T19:27:00.508614+00:00] [MainProcess] [MainThread] [INFO] [asyncio.runners/run():190] | 10.244.1.5:59244 - "POST /v2/kubernetes-inventory HTTP/1.1" 201

3 - Viewing System Events

If you’ve successfully verified that all Anchore Enterprise services are up, but are still running into issues operating Anchore, a good place check is the event log.

The event log subsystem provides users with a mechanism to inspect asynchronous events occurring across various Anchore Enterprise services. Anchore events include periodically-triggered activities such as vulnerability data feed sync in the policy_engine service, image analysis failures originating from the analyzer service, and other informational or system fault events. The catalog service may also generate events for any repositories or image tags that are being watched when Anchore Enterprise encounters connectivity, authentication, authorization, or other errors in the process of checking for updates.

The event log is aimed at troubleshooting most common failure scenarios, especially those that happen during asynchronous operations, and to pinpoint the reasons for failures that can be used subsequently to help with corrective actions. Events can be cleared from Anchore Enterprise in bulk or individually.

Viewing Events

Running the following command will give a list of recent Anchore events: anchorectl event list

# Viewing list of recent Anchore events

# anchorectl event list
 ✔ List events
┌──────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬─────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ UUID                             │ EVENT TYPE                                   │ LEVEL │ RESOURCE ID                                           │ RESOURCE TYPE   │ SOURCE SERVICE │ SOURCE HOST        │ TIMESTAMP                   │
├──────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│ 329ff24aa77549458e2656f1a6f4c98f │ system.image_analysis.registry_lookup_failed │ error │ dockerr.io/alpine:3.4                                 │ image_reference │ catalog        │ anchore-quickstart │ 2022-08-24T22:08:29.026352Z │
│ 4010f105cf264be6839c7e8ca1a0c46e │ system.image_analysis.registry_lookup_failed │ error │ dockerr.io/alpine:latest                              │ image_reference │ catalog        │ anchore-quickstart │ 2022-08-24T22:08:28.991101Z │
│ 6924eb83313746ff8b842a88654e3ac1 │ system.image_analysis.registry_lookup_failed │ error │ dockerr.io/alpine:3.12                                │ image_reference │ catalog        │ anchore-quickstart │ 2022-08-24T22:08:28.956321Z │
│ efdcf727647c458f85cb6464926e474d │ system.image_analysis.registry_lookup_failed │ error │ dockerr.io/nginx:latest                               │ image_reference │ catalog        │ anchore-quickstart │ 2022-08-24T22:08:28.920222Z │
...
│ 1eb04509b2bc44208cdc7678eaf76fef │ user.image.analysis.completed                │ info  │ docker.io/ubuntu:latest                               │ image_tag       │ analyzer       │ anchore-quickstart │ 2022-08-24T22:06:13.736004Z │
│ 6f735f8db7e84ce19b221d3b024318af │ user.image.analysis.processing               │ info  │ docker.io/ubuntu:latest                               │ image_tag       │ analyzer       │ anchore-quickstart │ 2022-08-24T22:06:13.128912Z │
│ 480eb191f87440b48c9f8cfa6529badf │ user.image_tag.added                         │ info  │ docker.io/ubuntu:latest                               │ image_tag       │ catalog        │ anchore-quickstart │ 2022-08-24T22:06:08.307039Z │
...
└──────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴─────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

Details about a specific event

If you would like more information about a specific event, you can run the following command: anchorectl event get <event-id>

# Details about a specific Anchore event

# anchorectl event get 1eb04509b2bc44208cdc7678eaf76fef
 ✔ Fetched event
UUID: 1eb04509b2bc44208cdc7678eaf76fef
Event:
  Event Type: user.image.analysis.completed
  Level: info
  Message: Image analysis available
  Resource:
    Resource ID: docker.io/ubuntu:latest
    Resource Type: image_tag
    User Id: admin
  Source:
    Source Service: analyzer
    Base Url: http://analyzer:8228
    Source Host: anchore-quickstart
    Request Id:
  Timestamp: 2022-08-24T22:06:13.736004Z
  Category:
  Details:
Created At: 2022-08-24T22:06:13.832881Z

Note: Depending on the output from the detailed events, looking into the logs for a particular servicename (example: policy_engine) is the next troubleshooting step.

4 - Data Syncer

Anchore Enterprise runs a hosted data service called the Anchore Data Service. This service publishes datasets from a number of provider sources. The Data Syncer Service is a core component of Enterprise. Its job is to periodically query Anchore Data Service and download any new datasets available.

Performing a basic health check

Run $ anchorectl feed list as admin and ensure that:

  • The last sync date shown is recent and that the feed has enabled set to true.

Run $ anchorectl feed sync as admin which will:

  • Queue an update to fetch the data from the data service and propagate feed data across internal services.
    • Otherwise, this runs on a regular schedule.

You can also visually check the health in the ‘System’ section of the UI when logged in as admin.

Configuration checks

Check that the feed pod/container has enough disk space:

Storage

  • Ensure your data syncer pod has enough storage (Around 2 Gb of writable space) to cache the datasets to disk, this reduces database queries.

Memory

  • Ensure the data syncer pod has sufficient memory (Around 2Gb of Memory), especially if you are running multiple analyzers

Network

  • Ensure your data-syncer pod / container has network connectivity to hosted feed service by exec’ing into the container and then:
    • If you have a network proxy deployed, you might need to configure your feed service to utilize it:
  • Ensure your policy pod / container has network connectivity to your local data-syncer pod / container
    • Run e.g. curl http://anchore-data-syncer:8448/v2/datasets/vulnerability_db/5/latest returns success to confirm connectivity.

Operational Checks and Verification

  • Feed list show up empty: Check if your feed syncs are happening, there should be data_syncer events in the event log. You should see successful events in the event log. In case there are failures click on the event log and see the cause for failure.
  • Data-syncer is reporting errors fetching new datasets: Check the Anchore Data Service Status Page. If the service is reporting up and running then check your firewall settings. If the service is reporting any failures please wait for the service to recover.
  • I see a lot of 404’s in the data-syncer and policy engine logs as soon as the services start: This is normal, the data-syncer takes a few minutes after startup to successfully sync down the configured datasets from the Anchore Data Service. The Policy Engine Service starts asking for the latest vulnerability dataset as soon as it starts up, it takes a few minutes for the system to reconcile. (This is only true for new greenfield deployments)
  • My first analyzer scan takes longer than the rest: First analyzer scan can take up to 5 minutes, this is just due to the analyzer waiting for the data-syncer to sync down a ClamAV database. Subsequent scans will be no incur this penalty.

5 - Verifying Service Health

You can verify which services have registered themselves successfully, along with their status, by running: anchorectl system status

# anchorectl system status
 ✔ Status system
┌─────────────────┬────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┬──────┬────────────────┬────────────┬──────────────┐
│ SERVICE         │ HOST ID            │ URL                         │ UP   │ STATUS MESSAGE │ DB VERSION │ CODE VERSION │
├─────────────────┼────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼──────┼────────────────┼────────────┼──────────────┤
│ analyzer        │ anchore-quickstart │ http://analyzer:8228        │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ policy_engine   │ anchore-quickstart │ http://policy-engine:8228   │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ apiext          │ anchore-quickstart │ http://api:8228             │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ reports         │ anchore-quickstart │ http://reports:8228         │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ reports_worker  │ anchore-quickstart │ http://reports-worker:8228  │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ data_syncer     │ anchore-quickstart │ http://data-syncer:8228     │ true │ available      | 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ simplequeue     │ anchore-quickstart │ http://queue:8228           │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ notifications   │ anchore-quickstart │ http://notifications:8228   │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ catalog         │ anchore-quickstart │ http://catalog:8228         │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
└─────────────────┴────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┴──────┴────────────────┴────────────┴──────────────┘

Note: If specific services are down, you can investigate the logs for the services. For more information, see Viewing Logs.

The -vvv and –json options

Passing the -vvv option to AnchoreCTL can often help narrow down particular issues by displaying the client configuration and client functions as they are running:

# Example system status with -vvv

# anchorectl -vvv system status
[0000]  INFO anchorectl version: 5.11.0
[0000] DEBUG application config:
  url: http://localhost:8228
  username: admin
  password: '******'
...
[0000] DEBUG command config:
  format: text
[0000] DEBUG checking if new version of anchorectl is available
[0000] TRACE worker stopped component=eventloop
[0000] TRACE bus stopped component=eventloop
┌─────────────────┬────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┬──────┬────────────────┬────────────┬──────────────┐
│ SERVICE         │ HOST ID            │ URL                         │ UP   │ STATUS MESSAGE │ DB VERSION │ CODE VERSION │
├─────────────────┼────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼──────┼────────────────┼────────────┼──────────────┤
│ analyzer        │ anchore-quickstart │ http://analyzer:8228        │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ policy_engine   │ anchore-quickstart │ http://policy-engine:8228   │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ apiext          │ anchore-quickstart │ http://api:8228             │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ reports         │ anchore-quickstart │ http://reports:8228         │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ reports_worker  │ anchore-quickstart │ http://reports-worker:8228  │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ data_syncer     │ anchore-quickstart │ http://data-syncer:8228     │ true │ available      | 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ simplequeue     │ anchore-quickstart │ http://queue:8228           │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ notifications   │ anchore-quickstart │ http://notifications:8228   │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
│ catalog         │ anchore-quickstart │ http://catalog:8228         │ true │ available      │ 5110       │ 5.11.1       │
└─────────────────┴────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┴──────┴────────────────┴────────────┴──────────────┘

Passing the --json option to AnchoreCTL commands will output the API response data in JSON, which often contains much more information than what the CLI outputs by default for both regular successful operations, and for operations that are resulting in an error:

# anchorectl -o json system status
 ✔ Status system
{
  "serviceStates": [
    {
      "baseUrl": "http://reports_worker:8228",
      "hostid": "anchore-quickstart",
      "serviceDetail": {
...
...