Find Out What Container Runtime is Used on a Node

This page outlines steps to find out what container runtime the nodes in your cluster use.

Depending on the way you run your cluster, the container runtime for the nodes may have been pre-configured or you need to configure it. If you’re using a managed Kubernetes service, there might be vendor-specific ways to check what container runtime is configured for the nodes. The method described on this page should work whenever the execution of kubectl is allowed.

Before you begin

Install and configure kubectl. See Install Tools section for details.

Find out the container runtime used on a Node

Use kubectl to fetch and show node information:

  1. kubectl get nodes -o wide

The output is similar to the following. The column CONTAINER-RUNTIME outputs the runtime and its version.

  1. # For dockershim
  2. NAME         STATUS   VERSION    CONTAINER-RUNTIME
  3. node-1       Ready    v1.16.15   docker://19.3.1
  4. node-2       Ready    v1.16.15   docker://19.3.1
  5. node-3       Ready    v1.16.15   docker://19.3.1
  1. # For containerd
  2. NAME         STATUS   VERSION   CONTAINER-RUNTIME
  3. node-1       Ready    v1.19.6   containerd://1.4.1
  4. node-2       Ready    v1.19.6   containerd://1.4.1
  5. node-3       Ready    v1.19.6   containerd://1.4.1

Find out more information about container runtimes on Container Runtimes page.