How to properly execute a command in a startupProbe in Kubernetes?

Question

I am trying to use this startup probe

          startupProbe:
            exec:
              command:
                - >-
                  test $(java -cp /the/path/to/the/app.jar app.Controller port=4990 cmd="v" | grep -E 'r5|v5' | wc -l) -eq 2 && echo $? || echo $?
            initialDelaySeconds: 5 #How many seconds to wait after the container has started
            timeoutSeconds: 1 #Timeout of the probe
            successThreshold: 1 #Threshold needed to mark the container healthy
            periodSeconds   : 10 #Wait time between probe executions
            failureThreshold: 110 #Threshold needed to mark the container unhealthy.

It is a java app that can take a long time (~15 mins) to load some components. It is a legacy app, not much I can do about it.

I am greping the response, trying to get two lines as a result, and then returning 0 or 1 as exit codes for the probe to decide.

I get his error though

Startup probe errored: rpc error: code = Unknown desc = failed to exec in container: failed to start exec "8ad860ffc7a87e95fb65e37dc14945c04fa205f9a524c7f7f08f9d6ef7d75": OCI runtime exec failed: exec failed: container_linux.go:380: starting container process caused: exec: "test $(java -cp /the/path/to/the/app.jar app.Controller port=4990 cmd=\"v\" | grep -E 'r5|v5' | wc -l) -eq 2 && echo $? || echo $?": stat test $(java -cp /the/path/to/the/app.jar app.Controller port=4990 cmd="v" | grep -E 'r5|v5' | wc -l) -eq 2 && echo $? || echo $?: no such file or directory: unknown

If I dont use the && echo $? || echo $? part, the probe throws error that the exit code is 2 and not 1.

What is going on ??

Answer 1

You need to start a shell to run your script:

startupProbe:
  exec:
    command:
    - sh
    - -c
    - >-
      ...