Kubernetes - Static Pods

Last Updated: 2023-02-16

Static Pods are defined in /etc/kubernetes/manifests (When installing Kubernetes with the kubeadm tool.)

Static Pods are managed directly by the kubelet daemon on a specific node, without the API server observing them. I.e.kubelet watches /etc/kubernetes/manifests.

Static Pods are under namepace kube-system.

To check kubelet status: systemctl status kubelet

To check kubelet logs: journalctl -u kubelet

To check static pods logs:

crictl ps
crictl logs <container>

The kubelet automatically creates a mirror pod on the 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.

To check the mirror Pods on the API server:

kubectl get pods