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Version/Environment (if relevant):

All versions on AWS/EKS

Issue:

Customers find Pods stuck in ContainerCreating and/or liveness probes fail with an event in the kubectl describe which mentions errno 524:

Root Cause:

There is a linux kernel memory leak bug in the EKS optimized AMI based on linux kernel version 5.10.x. The linux bug can be verified by using cat /proc/sys/net/core/bpf_jit_limit and seeing what the limit currently is and by using cat /proc/vmallocinfo | grep bpf_jit | awk '{s+=$2} END {print s}', to see if the limit has been exceeded. Example:
More details: https://github.com/awslabs/amazon-eks-ami/issues/1219#issuecomment-1533797378 “This issue is more likely to be encountered with kernel versions kernel-5.10.176-157.645.amzn2thrukernel-5.10.177-158.645.amzn where the rate of the memory leak is higher.”

Resolution:

AWS corrected the problem by patching by a new AMI Release AMI Release v20230501 awslabs/amazon-eks-ami, released May 3rd 2023. Temporary workaround is to run sysctl net.core.bpf_jit_limit=452534528 on all platform nodes by ssh’ing directly onto them. The permanent fix is to get your EKS to use this AMI: Release AMI Release v20230501 awslabs/amazon-eks-ami

Notes/Information:

Note the “temporary workaround” is short-term only, since the kernel bug can continue leaking.
Last modified on October 12, 2026