Bluefield3 Blueman failed to StartContainer

Hi forum.

I am attempting to set up a brand new BlueField-3 DPU and I’ve successfully configured the BMC and management network. Ubuntu is working flawless . Now I’m working on the telemetry part, but I can’t get the Blueman UI to start. I have run the DOCA BlueMan service setup script, which successfully imported the fe and conv Docker images locally

Has anyone else had a similar problem?

$ sudo systemctl status kubelet
kubelet.service - kubelet: The Kubernetes Node Agent
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/kubelet.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/kubelet.service.d
└─90-kubelet-bluefield.conf
Active: active (running) since Wed 2025-12-10 12:36:40 UTC; 1h 11min ago
Docs: 

Main PID: 589209 (kubelet)
Tasks: 25 (limit: 37723)
Memory: 30.7M
CPU: 35.407s
CGroup: /system.slice/kubelet.service
└─589209 /usr/bin/kubelet --config=/var/lib/kubelet/config.yaml

Dec 10 13:45:42 blue01 kubelet[589209]: E1210 13:45:42.853412  589209 pod_workers.go:1298] “Error syncing pod, skipping” err=“[failed to "StartContainer" for "doca-blueman-fe" with ImagePullBackOff: "Back-off pulling image \"doca_blueman_fe:2.1.2-doca3.0.0\"", failed to "StartContainer" for "doca-blueman-conv" with ImagePullBackOff: "Back-off pulling image \"doca_blueman_conv:1.0.8-doca3.0.0\""]” pod=“default/doca-blueman-blue01” podUID=“a19bd63f724e02ea1eafb7e75c5cd292”
$ sudo cat /var/lib/kubelet/config.yaml
apiVersion: kubelet.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: KubeletConfiguration
containerRuntimeEndpoint: unix:///run/containerd/containerd.sock

kubelet in standalone

authentication:
anonymous:
enabled: false
webhook:
enabled: false
authorization:
mode: AlwaysAllow
# Define POD CIDR
podCIDR: 10.0.0.0/16
# static pod for stand-alone mode
staticPodPath: /etc/kubelet.d/
cgroupDriver: systemd
# DPU management address
# address: 
# imageMinimumGCAge:
# imageGCHighThresholdPercent: 95
# imageGCLowThresholdPercent: 80
# maxPods: 3
# systemReserved:
# cpu: “300m”
# Memory: “300Mi”
$ cat doca_blueman_standalone.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: doca-blueman
spec:
  hostNetwork: true
  volumes:
    - name: ssl-private
      hostPath:
        path: /etc/ssl/private/blueman
        type: Directory
      readOnly: true
    - name: ssl-certs
      hostPath:
        path: /etc/ssl/certs/blueman
        type: Directory
      readOnly: true
 containers:
    - name: doca-blueman-fe
      resources:
        requests:
          memory: "100Mi"
          cpu: "200m"
        limits:
          memory: "200Mi"
          cpu: "300m"
      image: doca_blueman_fe:2.1.2-doca3.0.0
      imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
      volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /data/ssl/private/blueman
          name: ssl-private
        - mountPath: /data/ssl/certs/blueman
          name: ssl-certs
    - name: doca-blueman-conv
      resources:
        requests:
          memory: "100Mi"
          cpu: "200m"
        limits:
          memory: "200Mi"
          cpu: "300m"
      image : doca_blueman_conv:1.0.8-doca3.0.0
      imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
      volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /data/ssl/private/blueman
          name: ssl-private
        - mountPath: /data/ssl/certs/blueman
          name: ssl-certs
$ sudo crictl images
IMAGE                                      TAG                 IMAGE ID            SIZE
docker.io/library/doca_telemetry           1.21.1-doca3.0.0    1491e894789e9       448MB
k8s.gcr.io/pause                           3.9                 829e9de338bd5       517kB
nvcr.io/nvstaging/doca/doca_blueman_conv   1.0.8-doca3.0.0     e359ecb4ca0b8       167MB
nvcr.io/nvstaging/doca/doca_blueman_fe     2.1.2-doca3.0.0     1dd16e3b3e1a0       70.6MB

I answer to myself.

Changing in doca_blueman_standalone.yaml file

      image : doca_blueman_fe:2.1.2-doca3.0.0
      imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent

to

      image: nvcr.io/nvstaging/doca/doca_blueman_fe:2.1.2-doca3.0.0
      imagePullPolicy: Never

and

image : doca_blueman_conv:1.0.8-doca3.0.0
imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent

to

      image : nvcr.io/nvstaging/doca/doca_blueman_conv:1.0.8-doca3.0.0
      imagePullPolicy: Never

and restarting
dpe service

kubelet service

$ sudo crictl ps
STATE NAME
Running doca-blueman-conv
Running doca-blueman-fe
Running doca-telemetry-service

did the magic. Now it´s working

It looks some kind of bug.