Create static Pods

Static Pods are managed directly by the kubelet daemon on a specific node, without the API server observing them. Unlike Pods that are managed by the control plane (for example, a Deployment); instead, the kubelet watches each static Pod (and restarts it if it fails).

Static Pods are always bound to one Kubelet on a specific node.

The kubelet automatically tries to create a mirror Pod on the Kubernetes API server for each static Pod. This means that the Pods running on a node are visible on the API server, but cannot be controlled from there. The Pod names will suffixed with the node hostname with a leading hyphen

Note: If you are running clustered Kubernetes and are using static Pods to run a Pod on every node, you should probably be using a DaemonSet instead.

Before you begin

You need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the kubectl command-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. It is recommended to run this tutorial on a cluster with at least two nodes that are not acting as control plane hosts. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using minikube or you can use one of these Kubernetes playgrounds:

To check the version, enter kubectl version.

This page assumes you’re using Docker to run Pods, and that your nodes are running the Fedora operating system. Instructions for other distributions or Kubernetes installations may vary.

Create a static pod

You can configure a static Pod with either a file system hosted configuration file or a web hosted configuration file.

Filesystem-hosted static Pod manifest

Manifests are standard Pod definitions in JSON or YAML format in a specific directory. Use the staticPodPath: <the directory> field in the kubelet configuration file, which periodically scans the directory and creates/deletes static Pods as YAML/JSON files appear/disappear there. Note that the kubelet will ignore files starting with dots when scanning the specified directory.

For example, this is how to start a simple web server as a static Pod:

  1. Choose a node where you want to run the static Pod. In this example, it’s my-node1.

    1. ssh my-node1

  2. Choose a directory, say /etc/kubelet.d and place a web server Pod definition there, for example /etc/kubelet.d/static-web.yaml:

    1. # Run this command on the node where kubelet is running
    2. mkdir /etc/kubelet.d/
    3. cat <<EOF >/etc/kubelet.d/static-web.yaml
    4. apiVersion: v1
    5. kind: Pod
    6. metadata:
    7.   name: static-web
    8.   labels:
    9.     role: myrole
    10. spec:
    11.   containers:
    12.     - name: web
    13.       image: nginx
    14.       ports:
    15.         - name: web
    16.           containerPort: 80
    17.           protocol: TCP
    18. EOF

  3. Configure your kubelet on the node to use this directory by running it with --pod-manifest-path=/etc/kubelet.d/ argument. On Fedora edit /etc/kubernetes/kubelet to include this line:

    1. KUBELET_ARGS="--cluster-dns=10.254.0.10 --cluster-domain=kube.local --pod-manifest-path=/etc/kubelet.d/"

    or add the staticPodPath: <the directory> field in the kubelet configuration file.

  4. Restart the kubelet. On Fedora, you would run:

    1. # Run this command on the node where the kubelet is running
    2. systemctl restart kubelet

Web-hosted static pod manifest

Kubelet periodically downloads a file specified by --manifest-url=<URL> argument and interprets it as a JSON/YAML file that contains Pod definitions. Similar to how filesystem-hosted manifests work, the kubelet refetches the manifest on a schedule. If there are changes to the list of static Pods, the kubelet applies them.

To use this approach:

  1. Create a YAML file and store it on a web server so that you can pass the URL of that file to the kubelet.

    1. apiVersion: v1
    2. kind: Pod
    3. metadata:
    4.   name: static-web
    5.   labels:
    6.     role: myrole
    7. spec:
    8.   containers:
    9.     - name: web
    10.       image: nginx
    11.       ports:
    12.         - name: web
    13.           containerPort: 80
    14.           protocol: TCP

  2. Configure the kubelet on your selected node to use this web manifest by running it with --manifest-url=<manifest-url>. On Fedora, edit /etc/kubernetes/kubelet to include this line:

    1. KUBELET_ARGS="--cluster-dns=10.254.0.10 --cluster-domain=kube.local --manifest-url=<manifest-url>"

  3. Restart the kubelet. On Fedora, you would run:

    1. # Run this command on the node where the kubelet is running
    2. systemctl restart kubelet

Observe static pod behavior

When the kubelet starts, it automatically starts all defined static Pods. As you have defined a static Pod and restarted the kubelet, the new static Pod should already be running.

You can view running containers (including static Pods) by running (on the node):

  1. # Run this command on the node where the kubelet is running
  2. docker ps

The output might be something like:

  1. CONTAINER ID IMAGE         COMMAND  CREATED        STATUS         PORTS     NAMES
  2. f6d05272b57e nginx:latest  "nginx"  8 minutes ago  Up 8 minutes             k8s_web.6f802af4_static-web-fk-node1_default_67e24ed9466ba55986d120c867395f3c_378e5f3c

You can see the mirror Pod on the API server:

  1. kubectl get pods
  1. NAME                       READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
  2. static-web-my-node1        1/1       Running   0          2m

Note: Make sure the kubelet has permission to create the mirror Pod in the API server. If not, the creation request is rejected by the API server. See PodSecurityPolicy.

Labels from the static Pod are propagated into the mirror Pod. You can use those labels as normal via selectors, etc.

If you try to use kubectl to delete the mirror Pod from the API server, the kubelet doesn’t remove the static Pod:

  1. kubectl delete pod static-web-my-node1
  1. pod "static-web-my-node1" deleted

You can see that the Pod is still running:

  1. kubectl get pods
  1. NAME                       READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
  2. static-web-my-node1        1/1       Running   0          12s

Back on your node where the kubelet is running, you can try to stop the Docker container manually. You’ll see that, after a time, the kubelet will notice and will restart the Pod automatically:

  1. # Run these commands on the node where the kubelet is running
  2. docker stop f6d05272b57e # replace with the ID of your container
  3. sleep 20
  4. docker ps
  1. CONTAINER ID        IMAGE         COMMAND                CREATED       ...
  2. 5b920cbaf8b1        nginx:latest  "nginx -g 'daemon of   2 seconds ago ...

Dynamic addition and removal of static pods

The running kubelet periodically scans the configured directory (/etc/kubelet.d in our example) for changes and adds/removes Pods as files appear/disappear in this directory.

  1. # This assumes you are using filesystem-hosted static Pod configuration
  2. # Run these commands on the node where the kubelet is running
  3. #
  4. mv /etc/kubelet.d/static-web.yaml /tmp
  5. sleep 20
  6. docker ps
  7. # You see that no nginx container is running
  8. mv /tmp/static-web.yaml  /etc/kubelet.d/
  9. sleep 20
  10. docker ps
  1. CONTAINER ID        IMAGE         COMMAND                CREATED           ...
  2. e7a62e3427f1        nginx:latest  "nginx -g 'daemon of   27 seconds ago