Multi-Container Logging and Ephemeral Debug Containers

Your Pod runs a distroless image. No shell, no curl, no ls. It just crashed, and kubectl exec returns "executable file not found in $PATH." You need to get inside that container, but there's nothing to exec into.

This is where ephemeral debug containers and multi-container logging patterns earn their place. The CKA Troubleshooting domain (30% of the exam) tests your ability to extract logs from multi-container Pods, attach debug containers to running workloads, and diagnose CrashLoopBackOff without redeploying. This lesson covers sidecar logging with kubectl logs -c, ephemeral containers via kubectl debug, debug profiles, and the full toolkit for debugging pods that resist standard approaches.