Learn Kubernetes Basics

Reference

Kubernetes v1.15 documentation is no longer actively maintained. The version you are currently viewing is a static snapshot. For up-to-date documentation, see the latest version.

Edit This Page

Well-Known Labels, Annotations and Taints

Kubernetes reserves all labels and annotations in the kubernetes.io namespace.

This document serves both as a reference to the values, and as a coordination point for assigning values.

kubernetes.io/arch

Example: kubernetes.io/arch=amd64

Used on: Node

Kubelet populates this with runtime.GOARCH as defined by Go. This can be handy if you are mixing arm and x86 nodes, for example.

kubernetes.io/os

Example: kubernetes.io/os=linux

Used on: Node

Kubelet populates this with runtime.GOOS as defined by Go. This can be handy if you are mixing operating systems in your cluster (e.g., mixing Linux and Windows nodes).

beta.kubernetes.io/arch (deprecated)

This label has been deprecated. Please use kubernetes.io/arch instead.

beta.kubernetes.io/os (deprecated)

This label has been deprecated. Please use kubernetes.io/os instead.

kubernetes.io/hostname

Example: kubernetes.io/hostname=ip-172-20-114-199.ec2.internal

Used on: Node

Kubelet populates this with the hostname. Note that the hostname can be changed from the “actual” hostname by passing the --hostname-override flag to kubelet.

beta.kubernetes.io/instance-type

Example: beta.kubernetes.io/instance-type=m3.medium

Used on: Node

Kubelet populates this with the instance type as defined by the cloudprovider. It will not be set if not using a cloudprovider. This can be handy if you want to target certain workloads to certain instance types, but typically you want to rely on the Kubernetes scheduler to perform resource-based scheduling, and you should aim to schedule based on properties rather than on instance types (e.g. require a GPU, instead of requiring a g2.2xlarge)

failure-domain.beta.kubernetes.io/region

See failure-domain.beta.kubernetes.io/zone.

failure-domain.beta.kubernetes.io/zone

Example:

failure-domain.beta.kubernetes.io/region=us-east-1

failure-domain.beta.kubernetes.io/zone=us-east-1c

Used on: Node, PersistentVolume

On the Node: Kubelet populates this with the zone information as defined by the cloudprovider. It will not be set if not using a cloudprovider, but you should consider setting it on the nodes if it makes sense in your topology.

On the PersistentVolume: The PersistentVolumeLabel admission controller will automatically add zone labels to PersistentVolumes, on GCE and AWS.

Kubernetes will automatically spread the pods in a replication controller or service across nodes in a single-zone cluster (to reduce the impact of failures). With multiple-zone clusters, this spreading behaviour is extended across zones (to reduce the impact of zone failures). This is achieved via SelectorSpreadPriority.

This is a best-effort placement, and so if the zones in your cluster are heterogeneous (e.g. different numbers of nodes, different types of nodes, or different pod resource requirements), this might prevent equal spreading of your pods across zones. If desired, you can use homogenous zones (same number and types of nodes) to reduce the probability of unequal spreading.

The scheduler (via the VolumeZonePredicate predicate) will also ensure that pods that claim a given volume are only placed into the same zone as that volume, as volumes cannot be attached across zones.

The actual values of zone and region don’t matter, and nor is the meaning of the hierarchy rigidly defined. The expectation is that failures of nodes in different zones should be uncorrelated unless the entire region has failed. For example, zones should typically avoid sharing a single network switch. The exact mapping depends on your particular infrastructure - a three-rack installation will choose a very different setup to a multi-datacenter configuration.

If PersistentVolumeLabel does not support automatic labeling of your PersistentVolumes, you should consider adding the labels manually (or adding support to PersistentVolumeLabel), if you want the scheduler to prevent pods from mounting volumes in a different zone. If your infrastructure doesn’t have this constraint, you don’t need to add the zone labels to the volumes at all.

Feedback