Fixing – pod has unbound immediate persistentvolumeclaims or cannot bind to requested volume incompatible accessmode

Aug 23, 2020 · 6 min read · Kubernetes ·

Last Modified : Mar 12, 2021

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Author : Rahul Wagh

There could be multiple reasons behind this issue.

But before we jump to the solution, first let us see how to identify the issue -

How to identify the issue?

Once you identify the issue then here are the possible solutions -

How to identify the issue?

The first which I would recommend is to check the status of the Persistent Volume claim using the following command -

(In the bellow command please replace the PVC name as per your PVC name)

1$ kubectl get pvc jhooq-pvc

As you can see the STATUS says its Pending

Let's go ahead and check more details of the PVC (you can find the command below to the screeenshot)

pod has unbound immediate persistentvolumeclaims

1$ kubectl describe pvc jhooq-pvc

1Events:
2  Type     Reason          Age                   From                         Message
3  ----     ------          ----                  ----                         -------
4  Warning  VolumeMismatch  2m15s (x42 over 12m)  persistentvolume-controller  Cannot bind to requested volume "jhooq-demo-pv": incompatible accessMode

As you can see in the Reason column it says Warning VolumeMismatch Cannot bind to requested volume "jhooq-demo-pv": incompatible accessMode which means the accessModes: are not the same between your Persistent Volume and Persistent Volume claim

1. Mismatch in the accessModes of Persistent Volume and Persistent Volume Claim

You have specified different accessModes: in your Persistent Volume (PV) and Persistent Volume Claim (PVC) configuration. For example, your PV might have accessModes: ReadWriteOnce and PVC might have accessModes:ReadWriteMany. To fix this issue you should put the same accessModes in both PV and **PVC ** configurations, so choose accessModes based on your need but put the same accessModes in both the configurations.

I faced this issue while I was trying to set up the Persistent Volume and Persistent Volume Claim.

(Here is the guide on -How to setup persistent Volume and Persistent Volume Claim)

To fix this issue please put the same accessMode name in your both Persistent Volume configuration as well as Persistent Volume Claim configuration

Here is the Persistent Volume (PV) configuration with accessModes: ReadWriteOnce -

(You can the find configuration file code snippet after the screen shot)

 1apiVersion: v1
 2kind: PersistentVolume
 3metadata:
 4  name: jhooq-demo-pv
 5spec:
 6  capacity:
 7    storage: 1Gi
 8  volumeMode: Filesystem
 9  accessModes:
10  - ReadWriteOnce
11  persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain
12  storageClassName: local-storage
13  local:
14    path: /mnt/disks/ssd1
15  nodeAffinity:
16    required:
17      nodeSelectorTerms:
18      - matchExpressions:
19        - key: kubernetes.io/hostname
20          operator: In
21          values:
22          - node1

Here is the configuration for Persistent Volume Claim (PVC) with accessModes: ReadWriteOnce

(You can the find configuration file code snippet after the screen shot)

 1apiVersion: v1
 2kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
 3metadata:
 4  name: jhooq-pvc
 5spec:
 6  volumeName: jhooq-demo-pv
 7  storageClassName: local-storage
 8  volumeMode: Filesystem
 9  accessModes:
10    - ReadWriteOnce
11  resources:
12    requests:
13      storage: 1Gi

How to identify this issue from Kubernetes POD status?

Well in some cases this issue is a little tricky to identify especially if you are checking the status of the POD.

1$ kubectl get pods

1NAME                 READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
2jhooq-pod-with-pvc   0/1     Pending   0          52m

Here you can only guess that something is wrong with POD configuration.

You need to dig deeper to identify the issue underlying the POD. In my case, my POD name is jhooq-pod-with-pvc. So I will run the following command to check the failure status of the POD

(If you feel the screenshot is hard to see then please refer to the command below the screenshots. )

1$ kubectl describe pod jhooq-pod-with-pvc

 1Name:         jhooq-pod-with-pvc
 2Namespace:    default
 3Priority:     0
 4Node:         <none>
 5Labels:       name=jhooq-pod-with-pvc
 6Annotations:  Status:  Pending
 7IP:           
 8IPs:          <none>
 9Containers:
10  jhooq-pod-with-pvc:
11    Image:        rahulwagh17/kubernetes:jhooq-k8s-springboot
12    Port:         8080/TCP
13    Host Port:    0/TCP
14    Environment:  <none>
15    Mounts:
16      /usr/share/nginx/html from www-persistent-storage (rw)
17      /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount from default-token-72pqr (ro)
18Conditions:
19  Type           Status
20  PodScheduled   False 
21Volumes:
22  www-persistent-storage:
23    Type:       PersistentVolumeClaim (a reference to a PersistentVolumeClaim in the same namespace)
24    ClaimName:  jhooq-pvc
25    ReadOnly:   false
26  default-token-72pqr:
27    Type:        Secret (a volume populated by a Secret)
28    SecretName:  default-token-72pqr
29    Optional:    false
30QoS Class:       BestEffort
31Node-Selectors:  <none>
32Tolerations:     node.kubernetes.io/not-ready:NoExecute for 300s
33                 node.kubernetes.io/unreachable:NoExecute for 300s
34Events:
35  Type     Reason            Age        From               Message
36  ----     ------            ----       ----               -------
37  Warning  FailedScheduling  <unknown>  default-scheduler  running "VolumeBinding" filter plugin for pod "jhooq-pod
38-with-pvc": pod has unbound immediate PersistentVolumeClaims
39  Warning  FailedScheduling  <unknown>  default-scheduler  running "VolumeBinding" filter plugin for pod "jhooq-pod
40-with-pvc": pod has unbound immediate PersistentVolumeClaims

So the POD error also singles you to the same problem of different access modes.

Warning FailedScheduling default-scheduler running "VolumeBinding" filter plugin for pod "jhooq-pod-with-pvc": pod has unbound immediate PersistentVolumeClaims

Again here you need to check the accessModes of persistent volume and persistent volume claim and make sure it has the same accessModes.

2. PV(Persistent Volume) capacity is less than PVC(Persistent Volume Claim)

The second reason for this issue can be due the PV's capacity.storage < PVC's resources.requests.storage.

Here is an example where capacity.storage = 3Gi is less than resources.requests.storage = 19 Gi -

1
2# PV
3    capacity:
4        storage: 3Gi 
5        
6# PVC
7    resources:
8        requests:
9            storage: 10Gi

If it is the case then you will definitely get an error unbound immediate PersistentVolumeClaims no volume plugin matched name

3. The total number of PVC(Persistent Volume Claim) is higher than PV(Persistent Volume)

The third possible test case can be where total number of PVC > total number of PV

Here is an example -

There is only PV (Persistent Volume) available - jhooq-pv

1$ kubectl get pv
2NAME             CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   RECLAIM POLICY   STATUS   CLAIM                                      STORAGECLASS    REASON   AGE
3jhooq-pv         50Gi       RWO            Retain           Bound  default/jhooq-pvc local-storage            106m

There are more than 1 PVC(Persistent Volume Claim) for jhooq-pv

1$ kubectl get pvc
2NAME                               STATUS    VOLUME           CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS    AGE
3pvc-1                              Bound     jhooq-pv         50Gi       RWO            local-storage   80m
4pvc-2                              Pending                                              local-storage   45m

In the above example, pvc-2 will never get bound and it will always be in pending status.

To fix this either you have to delete the pvc-2 or create a new PV.

4. nodeAffinity of the PV is missing

The fourth possible scenario is where you are missing or you did not specify the nodeAffinity when you are using local values.