24 articles tagged with "kubernetes"
Node upgrades and cluster autoscaler scale-downs are supposed to be boring. Without a PodDisruptionBudget, Kubernetes is happy to evict every replica of your app at once to get there. Here's how PDBs actually work, where they quietly do nothing, and the mistakes that turn a routine drain into an incident.
kubectl get postgresqlcluster feels like magic until you realize it's just a controller watching etcd in a loop and yelling reconcile at itself. Here's what a CRD and an operator actually are, why you'd build one, and the footguns that only show up after you do.
cluster-admin for everyone is not a permissions model, it's a liability with YAML syntax. Here's how to design Kubernetes RBAC that actually scopes access, survives an audit, and doesn't turn every incident into a game of 'who could have done this.'
Turning on a default-deny NetworkPolicy is the easiest way to feel like a security hero for exactly four minutes, right before DNS stops resolving and your on-call phone starts screaming. Here's how to roll out network policies without setting your own pager on fire.
Your container runs fine locally, then face-plants in prod with 'permission denied' on a volume mount that definitely exists. Welcome to the UID/GID gotcha club — where numbers, not names, decide who owns your files.
Staging is a lie everyone agrees to tell. Ephemeral preview environments spin up a full stack per pull request and tear it down on merge - here's how to build them without setting your cloud bill on fire.
You've heard of Chaos Monkey. You do not have Netflix's infrastructure budget, on-call rotation, or risk appetite. Here's how to do real chaos engineering with a cron job, a `tc` command, and the nerve to run it in staging first.
Your container isn't as isolated as you think. seccomp and AppArmor create a second wall between your app and the host kernel — here's how to actually use them before your next audit finds out you haven't.
Your service is drowning in traffic. Most systems respond by slowing everyone down until nothing works. Load shedding flips the script — deliberately drop low-priority requests so high-priority ones keep flying.
Hardcoded AWS credentials in Docker containers and .env files are a breach waiting to happen. Workload identity gives your services cloud access without a single long-lived key in sight.
Your 8-core VM is running at 3% CPU. Your Kubernetes pods are OOMKilled every Tuesday. Right-sizing fixes both — but only if you stop guessing and start measuring what your workloads actually need.
Your pod is running. Your app is 'fine'. Users are screaming. Sound familiar? Kubernetes liveness and readiness probes are the lie detectors your cluster desperately needs — here's how to use them before your on-call rotation becomes a horror movie.
Liveness, readiness, and startup probes are the unsung heroes of Kubernetes reliability — and also the source of some truly spectacular 3 AM incidents. Here's how to stop your cluster from killing healthy pods and serving traffic to broken ones.
Ever had a Kubernetes node go dark because one rogue pod decided it deserved ALL the memory? Resource requests and limits are the seatbelts of K8s — boring until they save your life. Here's how to actually set them correctly.
I once deployed a Node.js app with no resource limits to a shared cluster. It leaked memory overnight and took down 12 other services by 9 AM. Here's what I learned so you don't repeat my Monday morning.
Spent a whole Sunday debugging why 30% of user requests returned 502 errors — turns out our pods were 'Running' but completely brain-dead. Kubernetes health probes would have caught it in seconds. Here's everything I wish I'd known.
Your pod says it's Running. Your users say the app is down. Kubernetes probes are the lie detector your cluster desperately needs — here's how to wire them up correctly.
Skipping resource limits in Kubernetes is like driving without a seatbelt — fine until it isn't. I learned this the hard way when one rogue pod starved the entire cluster at 2 AM. Here's what I wish I knew sooner.
Your pod keeps dying with OOMKilled and you have no idea why? After getting paged at 3 AM more times than I care to admit, I learned that Kubernetes resource limits aren't optional — they're the difference between a stable cluster and a cascading meltdown.
I used to maintain 47 nearly-identical Kubernetes YAML files across dev, staging, and prod. One typo in the wrong file caused a 4-hour outage. Then I discovered Helm — and my Kubernetes configs finally became manageable.
Your Kubernetes pod crashed but it's still getting requests? After watching production apps silently die while Kubernetes kept routing traffic to them, I finally understood liveness and readiness probes - and you need them too.
Your pods are vanishing into thin air, your logs say OOMKilled, and your on-call rotation is a nightmare. Let's fix that — with resource limits you'll actually understand.
Your cluster is running slow, nodes are OOMKilled at 3am, and nobody knows why. Spoiler: it's your pods with no resource limits set. Here's how to fix it before your on-call rotation turns into a nightmare.
Skipped setting resource requests and limits? Your cluster is a ticking time bomb. After watching production nodes get OOM-killed at 3am, I learned the hard way - here's how to set sane limits before your pods eat each other alive.