Description of problem:

We're seeing the following error in the ovnkube-controller container log on RHEL-8 worker which leads to the network is not ready of the node

F0206 03:40:21.953369   12091 ovnkube.go:137] failed to run ovnkube: [failed to start network controller: failed to start default network controller - while waiting for any node to have zone: "ip-10-0-75-250.ec2.internal", error: context canceled, failed to start node network controller: failed to start default node network controller: failed to find kubelet cgroup path: %!w(<nil>)]

The full log of the ovnkube-controller container:

https://gcsweb-ci.apps.ci.l2s4.p1.openshiftapps.com/gcs/test-platform-results/logs/periodic-ci-openshift-release-master-nightly-4.18-e2e-aws-ovn-workers-rhel8/1887322975150018560/artifacts/e2e-aws-ovn-workers-rhel8/gather-extra/artifacts/pods/openshift-ovn-kubernetes_ovnkube-node-js6vn_ovnkube-controller.log

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
4.18.0-0.nightly-2025-02-05-033447/4.18.0-0.nightly-2025-02-04-192134

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Add RHEL-8 worker to 4.18 OCP cluster, but the RHEL workers can't be ready, found the following error about ovnkube-controller in the kublet.log

Feb 06 11:38:34 ip-10-0-50-48.us-east-2.compute.internal kubenswrapper[15267]: E0206 11:38:34.798490   15267 pod_workers.go:1301] "Error syncing pod, skipping" err="failed to \"StartContainer\" for \"ovnkube-controller\" with CrashLoopBackOff: \"back-off 20s restarting failed container=ovnkube-controller pod=ovnkube-node-txkkp_openshift-ovn-kubernetes(c22474ab-6f0b-4403-93a6-eb80766934e6)\"" pod="openshift-ovn-kubernetes/ovnkube-node-txkkp" podUID="c22474ab-6f0b-4403-93a6-eb80766934e6"

An example failure job: https://prow.ci.openshift.org/view/gs/test-platform-results/logs/periodic-ci-openshift-release-master-nightly-4.18-e2e-aws-ovn-workers-rhel8/1887322975150018560

2.

3.

Actual results:

Expected results:

Additional info:
Based on the test history, it's working for 4.18.0-0.nightly-2025-02-04-114552, but start failing for 4.18.0-0.nightly-2025-02-05-033447.
(Update: confirmed it's also failed on 4.18.0-0.nightly-2025-02-04-192134)

Here's the daily 4.18 rhel8 job history link:
https://prow.ci.openshift.org/job-history/gs/test-platform-results/logs/periodic-ci-openshift-release-master-nightly-4.18-e2e-aws-ovn-workers-rhel8

Please fill in the following template while reporting a bug and provide as much relevant information as possible. Doing so will give us the best chance to find a prompt resolution.

Affected Platforms:

Is it an

1. internal CI failure
2. customer issue / SD
3. internal RedHat testing failure

If it is an internal RedHat testing failure:

• Please share a kubeconfig or creds to a live cluster for the assignee to debug/troubleshoot along with reproducer steps (specially if it's a telco use case like ICNI, secondary bridges or BM+kubevirt).

If it is a CI failure:

• Did it happen in different CI lanes? If so please provide links to multiple failures with the same error instance
• Did it happen in both sdn and ovn jobs? If so please provide links to multiple failures with the same error instance
• Did it happen in other platforms (e.g. aws, azure, gcp, baremetal etc) ? If so please provide links to multiple failures with the same error instance
• When did the failure start happening? Please provide the UTC timestamp of the networking outage window from a sample failure run
• If it's a connectivity issue,
• What is the srcNode, srcIP and srcNamespace and srcPodName?
• What is the dstNode, dstIP and dstNamespace and dstPodName?
• What is the traffic path? (examples: pod2pod? pod2external?, pod2svc? pod2Node? etc)

If it is a customer / SD issue:

• Provide enough information in the bug description that Engineering doesn’t need to read the entire case history.
• Don’t presume that Engineering has access to Salesforce.
• Do presume that Engineering will access attachments through supportshell.
• Describe what each relevant attachment is intended to demonstrate (failed pods, log errors, OVS issues, etc).
• Referring to the attached must-gather, sosreport or other attachment, please provide the following details:
  • If the issue is in a customer namespace then provide a namespace inspect.
  • If it is a connectivity issue:
    • What is the srcNode, srcNamespace, srcPodName and srcPodIP?
    • What is the dstNode, dstNamespace, dstPodName and dstPodIP?
    • What is the traffic path? (examples: pod2pod? pod2external?, pod2svc? pod2Node? etc)
    • Please provide the UTC timestamp networking outage window from must-gather
    • Please provide tcpdump pcaps taken during the outage filtered based on the above provided src/dst IPs
  • If it is not a connectivity issue:
    • Describe the steps taken so far to analyze the logs from networking components (cluster-network-operator, OVNK, SDN, openvswitch, ovs-configure etc) and the actual component where the issue was seen based on the attached must-gather. Please attach snippets of relevant logs around the window when problem has happened if any.

• When showing the results from commands, include the entire command in the output.  
• For OCPBUGS in which the issue has been identified, label with “sbr-triaged”
• For OCPBUGS in which the issue has not been identified and needs Engineering help for root cause, label with “sbr-untriaged”
• Do not set the priority, that is owned by Engineering and will be set when the bug is evaluated
• Note: bugs that do not meet these minimum standards will be closed with label “SDN-Jira-template”
• For guidance on using this template please see
  OCPBUGS Template Training for Networking  components