can't bootstrap empty worker node in airgap with spegel from 1.33.5

[sushiMix]

Hello,
we bootstrapped our clusters using:

• a master node with a zst and embedded mirror registry (spegel) activated
• workers nodes without any images
  and that was working fine until 1.33.4

With 1.33.5 we can't bootstrap anymore the worker node is stuck in pulling images (and spegel does not seems active as not trace about it appears in log)

We noticed this modification in release notes : Fix spegel logging and startup sequence

It seems (but liked to confirm).
When starting agent :

• a file is pushed here : /var/lib/rancher/rke2/agent/images/runtime-image.txt to pull the base images (index.docker.io/rancher/rke2-runtime:v1.33.5-rke2r1)
• at this time containerd is up but spegel not yet
• spegel is waiting something which requires the image index.docker.io/rancher/rke2-runtime:v1.33.5-rke2r1 being pulled.
• startup is blocked.

Uploading manually rke2-images-core.linux-amd64.tar.zst unblock it.

Is there a way to bypass the issue without uploading manually the zst ?

[brandond]

You are correct, I regressed this by moving bootstrap before spegel startup.

[brandond]

Also, I appreciate that you correctly located the code as living here in K3s, but if there is a problem with RKE2, it really should be reported and discussed in the RKE2 project.

[brandond]

Tracking this in

• Unable to bootstrap nodes from embedded registry rancher/rke2#9197

[sushiMix]

Hello, sorry I should have asked in rke2 repository but could it impact some use case deployment with k3s too ?

[brandond]

Not really... K3s doesn't need to pull anything during startup, as rke2 does. Everything is just built into the binary.