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Application failures caused by the "argument list too long" error message

This article discusses troubleshooting strategies for resolving application failures that are caused by the "argument list too long" error message in Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

Symptoms

Your application fails when the kubelet tries to run the executable, and you receive an error message that resembles the following output:

standard_init_linux.go:228: exec user process caused: argument list too long

Cause 1: The argument list provided to the executable is too long

The arguments that are provided to the application's executable are too long to be processed.

Solution: Shorten the argument list

Eliminate any redundant or unnecessary arguments that you specify for the executable.

Cause 2: The set of environment variables provided to the executable is too large

If too many services are deployed in one namespace, the environment variable list can become too large, and the kubelet will produce the error message when it tries to run the executable. The error occurs because the kubelet adds environment variables that record the host and port for each active service, so that services can use this information to find other active services.

Solution 1: Reduce the number of services that are active

You can reduce the total number of active services, so that the kubelet adds a smaller number of overall environment variables.

Solution 2: Reconfigure the kubelet so that it doesn't add environment variables for the service host and port

Within the PodSpec core API, set the enableServiceLinks field to false. This change reconfigures the kubelet behavior so that the host and port aren't automatically added as environment variables for each active service.

Warning

If your service relies on these environment variables to find other services, this field change will cause the service to fail. To avoid this scenario, rely on DNS for service discovery instead of environment variables, by using CoreDNS.

Third-party information disclaimer

The third-party products that this article discusses are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, about the performance or reliability of these products.

Contact us for help

If you have questions, you can ask Azure community support. You can also submit product feedback to Azure feedback community.