litmus-docs/website/versioned_docs/version-1.2.0/node-memory-hog.md

id	title	sidebar_label	original_id
node-memory-hog	Node Memory Hog Experiment Details	Node Memory Hog	node-memory-hog

---

Experiment Metadata

Type	Description	Tested K8s Platform
Generic	Exhaust Memory resources on the Kubernetes Node	GKE, EKS

Prerequisites

• Ensure that the Litmus Chaos Operator is running by executing kubectl get pods in operator namespace (typically, litmus). If not, install from here
• Ensure that the node-memory-hog experiment resource is available in the cluster by executing kubectl get chaosexperiments in the desired namespace. If not, install from here
• There should be administrative access to the platform on which the Kubernetes cluster is hosted, as the recovery of the affected node could be manual. For example, gcloud access to the GKE project

Entry Criteria

• Application pods are healthy on the respective Nodes before chaos injection

Exit Criteria

• Application pods may or may not be healthy post chaos injection

Details

• This experiment causes Memory resource exhaustion on the Kubernetes node. The experiment aims to verify resiliency of applications whose replicas may be evicted on account on nodes turning unschedulable (Not Ready) due to lack of Memory resources.
• The Memory chaos is injected using a job running the linux stress-ng tool (a workload generator). The chaos is effected for a period equalling the TOTAL_CHAOS_DURATION and upto MEMORY_PERCENTAGE(out of 100).
• Application implies services. Can be reframed as: Tests application resiliency upon replica evictions caused due to lack of Memory resources

Integrations

• Node Memory Hog can be effected using the chaos library: litmus
• The desired chaos library can be selected by setting litmus as value for the env variable LIB

Steps to Execute the Chaos Experiment

• This Chaos Experiment can be triggered by creating a ChaosEngine resource on the cluster. To understand the values to provide in a ChaosEngine specification, refer Getting Started

• Follow the steps in the sections below to create the chaosServiceAccount, prepare the ChaosEngine & execute the experiment.

Prepare chaosServiceAccount

• Use this sample RBAC manifest to create a chaosServiceAccount in the desired (app) namespace. This example consists of the minimum necessary role permissions to execute the experiment.

Sample Rbac Manifest

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: node-memory-hog-sa
  namespace: default
  labels:
    name: node-memory-hog-sa
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  name: node-memory-hog-sa
  labels:
    name: node-memory-hog-sa
rules:
  - apiGroups: ["", "litmuschaos.io", "batch", "apps"]
    resources:
      [
        "pods",
        "jobs",
        "pods/log",
        "events",
        "chaosengines",
        "chaosexperiments",
        "chaosresults",
      ]
    verbs: ["create", "list", "get", "patch", "update", "delete"]
  - apiGroups: [""]
    resources: ["nodes"]
    verbs: ["get", "list"]
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: node-memory-hog-sa
  labels:
    name: node-memory-hog-sa
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: node-memory-hog-sa
subjects:
  - kind: ServiceAccount
    name: node-memory-hog-sa
    namespace: default

Prepare ChaosEngine

• Provide the application info in spec.appinfo
• Provide the auxiliary applications info (ns & labels) in spec.auxiliaryAppInfo
• Override the experiment tunables if desired

Supported Experiment Tunables

Variables	Description	Type	Notes
PLATFORM	The platform on which the chaos experiment will run	Mandatory	Defaults to GKE
TOTAL_CHAOS_DURATION	The time duration for chaos insertion (seconds)	Optional	Defaults to 120
MEMORY_PERCENTAGE	The size as percent of total available memory	Optional	Defaults to 90
LIB	The chaos lib used to inject the chaos	Optional	Defaults to `litmus`
RAMP_TIME	Period to wait before and after injection of chaos in sec	Optional

Sample ChaosEngine Manifest

apiVersion: litmuschaos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ChaosEngine
metadata:
  name: nginx-chaos
  namespace: default
spec:
  # It can be true/false
  annotationCheck: "false"
  # It can be active/stop
  engineState: "active"
  #ex. values: ns1:name=percona,ns2:run=nginx
  auxiliaryAppInfo: ""
  appinfo:
    appns: "default"
    applabel: "app=nginx"
    appkind: "deployment"
  chaosServiceAccount: node-memory-hog-sa
  monitoring: false
  # It can be delete/retain
  jobCleanUpPolicy: "delete"
  experiments:
    - name: node-memory-hog
      spec:
        components:
          env:
            # set chaos duration (in sec) as desired
            - name: TOTAL_CHAOS_DURATION
              value: "120"

            ## specify the size as percent of total available memory (in percentage %)
            ## default value 90%
            - name: MEMORY_PERCENTAGE
              value: "90"

              # It supprts GKE and EKS Platform
              # GKE is the default Platform
            - name: PLATFORM
              value: "GKE"

            # chaos lib used to inject the chaos
            - name: LIB
              value: "litmus"

Create the ChaosEngine Resource

• Create the ChaosEngine manifest prepared in the previous step to trigger the Chaos.

  kubectl apply -f chaosengine.yml

Watch Chaos progress

• Setting up a watch of the Memory consumed by nodes in the Kubernetes Cluster

  watch kubectl top nodes

Check Chaos Experiment Result

• Check whether the application is resilient to the memory hog, once the experiment (job) is completed. The ChaosResult resource name is derived like this: {"<ChaosEngine-Name>-<ChaosExperiment-Name>"}.

  kubectl describe chaosresult nginx-chaos-node-memory-hog -n <application-namespace>

Node Memory Hog Demo [TODO]

• A sample recording of this experiment execution is provided here.