KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes)
π kubectl drain β KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes) π
okay bestie, welcome to the kubernetes manual, section 1. grab a strawberry, sit down, and let's drain a node together πβ¨
β¨ NAME β¨
kubectl drain β drain node in preparation for maintenance π§Ήπ
π¦ SYNOPSIS π¦
kubectl drain [OPTIONS]
πΈ DESCRIPTION πΈ
Drain node in preparation for maintenance. It's giving "please leave the party, we're renovating." π π
The given node will be marked unschedulable so no new pods can arrive. drain evicts the pods if the API server supports eviction β that's this whole thing right here: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/disruptions/ eviction https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/disruptions/. Otherwise it just uses a normal DELETE to delete the pods. Either way, no cap.
So drain evicts or deletes all pods except mirror pods β and mirror pods literally cannot be deleted through the API server, so don't even try, it's not happening π.
If there are daemon set-managed pods, drain will not proceed without --ignore-daemonsets. And regardless of that flag, it will not delete any daemon set-managed pods, because those pods would be immediately replaced by the daemon set controller, which straight-up ignores unschedulable markings. It said "unschedulable? never heard of her." π
If there are any pods that are neither mirror pods nor managed by a replication controller, replica set, daemon set, stateful set, or job, then drain will not delete any pods unless you use --force. And --force will also allow deletion to proceed if the managing resource of one or more pods is missing. main character flag energy π
drain waits for graceful termination. You should not operate on the machine until the command completes. fr fr, just wait.
When you're ready to put the node back into service, use kubectl uncordon, which will make the node schedulable again. welcome back babe π«Ά
https://kubernetes.io/images/docs/kubectl_drain.svg Workflow https://kubernetes.io/images/docs/kubectl_drain.svg
π OPTIONS π
--chunk-size=500β Return large lists in chunks rather than all at once. Pass0to disable. tiny bites only π°--delete-emptydir-data=falseβ Continue even if there are pods usingemptyDir(local data that will be deleted when the node is drained). lowkey this deletes your stuff, just so you know π--disable-eviction=falseβ Force drain to use delete, even if eviction is supported. This will bypass checking PodDisruptionBudgets, use with caution. β οΈ--dry-run="none"β Must be"none","server", or"client". If client strategy, only print the object that would be sent, without sending it. If server strategy, submit server-side request without persisting the resource. a little dress rehearsal π--force=falseβ Continue even if there are pods that do not declare a controller. πͺ--grace-period=-1β Period of time in seconds given to each pod to terminate gracefully. If negative, the default value specified in the pod will be used. β³--ignore-daemonsets=falseβ Ignore DaemonSet-managed pods. π--pod-selector=""β Label selector to filter pods on the node-l,--selector=""β Selector (label query) to filter on, supports'=','==','!=','in','notin'. (e.g.-l key1=value1,key2=value2,key3 in (value3)). Matching objects must satisfy all of the specified label constraints. β¨--skip-wait-for-delete-timeout=0β If podDeletionTimestampolder thanNseconds, skip waiting for the pod. Seconds must be greater than0to skip.--timeout=0sβ The length of time to wait before giving up, zero means infinite. time is a construct anyway β°
π OPTIONS INHERITED FROM PARENT COMMANDS π
--as=""β Username to impersonate for the operation. User could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace.--as-group=[]β Group to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple groups.--as-uid=""β UID to impersonate for the operation.--as-user-extra=[]β User extras to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple values for the same key.--cache-dir="/home/username/.kube/cache"β Default cache directory--certificate-authority=""β Path to a cert file for the certificate authority--client-certificate=""β Path to a client certificate file for TLS--client-key=""β Path to a client key file for TLS--cluster=""β The name of the kubeconfig cluster to use--context=""β The name of the kubeconfig context to use--disable-compression=falseβ If true, opt-out of response compression for all requests to the server--insecure-skip-tls-verify=falseβ If true, the server's certificate will not be checked for validity. This will make your HTTPS connections insecure. π¨ bestie this is literally the opposite of safe--kubeconfig=""β Path to the kubeconfig file to use for CLI requests.--kuberc=""β Path to the kuberc file to use for preferences. This can be disabled by exportingKUBECTL_KUBERC=falsefeature gate or turning off the featureKUBERC=off.--match-server-version=falseβ Require server version to match client version-n,--namespace=""β If present, the namespace scope for this CLI request--password=""β Password for basic authentication to the API server--profile="none"β Name of profile to capture. One of (none|cpu|heap|goroutine|threadcreate|block|mutex|trace)--profile-output="profile.pprof"β Name of the file to write the profile to--proxy-url=""β Proxy URL to use for requests to the API server--request-timeout="0"β The length of time to wait before giving up on a single server request. Non-zero values should contain a corresponding time unit (e.g.1s,2m,3h). A value of zero means don't timeout requests.-s,--server=""β The address and port of the Kubernetes API server--tls-server-name=""β Server name to use for server certificate validation. If it is not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used--token=""β Bearer token for authentication to the API server--user=""β The name of the kubeconfig user to use--username=""β Username for basic authentication to the API server--version=falseβ--version,--version=rawprints version information and quits;--version=vX.Y.Z...sets the reported version--warnings-as-errors=falseβ Treat warnings received from the server as errors and exit with a non-zero exit code
β EXAMPLE β
# Drain node "foo", even if there are pods not managed by a replication controller, replica set, job, daemon set, or stateful set on it
kubectl drain foo --force
# As above, but abort if there are pods not managed by a replication controller, replica set, job, daemon set, or stateful set, and use a grace period of 15 minutes
kubectl drain foo --grace-period=900
π₯ SEE ALSO π₯
kubectl(1), β go read that one too, it's the parent π«Ά
π HISTORY π
January 2015, Originally compiled by Eric Paris (eparis at redhat dot com) based on the kubernetes source material, but hopefully they have been automatically generated since! iconic origin story honestly π
that's the whole thing bestie, you ate π
β¨ this page came to you from Manuals, version User, KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes), dated January 2015, originally compiled by Eric Paris. slay, bye ππ¦
π¦ where this page comes from
- arch rolling: kubectl 1.37.2-1 Β· Apache-2.0
- fedora 43: kubernetes1.37-client 1.37.0-3.fc43
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- fedora 44: kubernetes1.37-client 1.37.0-3.fc44
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- nixpkgs unstable: kubectl 1.37.2
- π girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms