Static pods are like regular pods, except they are managed by the kubelet service on a node and not the API server. The kubelet creates a mirror pod on the API server, which is a read-only copy that allows the pod to be seen on the API server but not controlled.

The kubelet service is responsible for managing the state of the pod and controlling restarts, for example.

The kubelet process watches the location specified with the configuration parameter --manifest-url or --pod-manifest-path.

There are several ways which you can view the configuration of a node. The examples below are based on a default deployment using kubeadm, where kubelet runs as a systemd service.

I am going to use the node k8s-01 for the below examples.

Using the API Server

1
2

$ kubectl proxy #By default this will use port 8001
$ curl -sSL "http://localhost:8001/api/v1/nodes/k8s-01/proxy/configz"

Configuration file

1
2
3
4

$ ssh user@k8s-01.sdbrett.lab
$ systemctl status kubelet
# The output will provide the run commands, the --config flag specifies the location of config.yaml. In this case the path is /var/lib/kubelet/config.yaml
$ sudo cat /var/lib/kubelet/config.yaml

NOTE: that the default permissions on /var/lib/kubelet are 700, so sudo or root is required to read the config file as well as modify.

Using | grep static makes it easier to find the entry in both examples.

The staticPodPath entry in config.yaml overwrites the --manifest-url or --pod-manifest-path arguments in the systemd service file. You need to comment out or remove the staticPodPath entry in config.yaml if you wish to use arguments in the service file.

Creating a static pod is as simple as placing a manifest in the correct location to be read by the kubelet. You can do this manually, through using a configuration management solution and version control would be a better option for production environments.

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14

$ ssh user@k8s-01.sdbrett.lab
$ sudo cat > /etc/kubernetes/manifests/static-nginx.yaml <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: nginx
  labels:
    env: test
spec:
  containers:
  - name: nginx
    image: nginx
    imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
EOF

You can see the static pod running with kubectl.

1
2
3

$kubectl get pods
NAME           READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
nginx-k8s-01   1/1     Running   0          14m

Deleting the manifest file removes the pod.

Static pods are suitable for when you need pods on some specific nodes but not all. If you need a pod on every node, then use a DaemonSet. If you need to ensure pods are on different nodes, then have a look at anti-affinity rules.