KCSA practice question 5 of 15

Which of the following statements on static Pods is true?

Answer options

A: The kubelet can run static Pods that span multiple nodes, provided that it has the necessary privileges from the API server.

B: The kubelet can run a maximum of 5 static Pods on each node.

C: The kubelet schedules static Pods local to its node without going through the kube-scheduler, making tracking and managing them difficult. Correct answer

D: The kubelet only deploys static Pods when the kube-scheduler is unresponsive.

Correct Answer:

C. The kubelet schedules static Pods local to its node without going through the kube-scheduler, making tracking and managing them difficult.

Explanation

Static Pods are managed directly by the kubelet daemon on a specific node, bypassing the Kubernetes control plane components like the API server and the scheduler for their creation. The kubelet watches a specific path on the node's filesystem (e.g., /etc/kubernetes/manifests) for Pod manifest files. When a manifest appears, the kubelet creates the Pod on that node without any intervention from the kube-scheduler. Because they are not managed by standard API-driven controllers (like Deployments or ReplicaSets), their lifecycle is tied directly to the kubelet on a single node, which makes centralized tracking, scaling, and management more difficult compared to standard Pods.

Why Incorrect

A. Static Pods are, by definition, confined to the single node where their manifest file resides and are managed by that node's kubelet; they cannot span multiple nodes.
B. There is no specific, predefined limit of 5 static Pods per node. The number of Pods a node can run is determined by its resources and the general --max-pods kubelet configuration.
D. The kubelet deploys static Pods as soon as it detects their manifest files in its configured directory, regardless of the kube-scheduler's operational status.

References

1. Kubernetes Documentation

"Static Pods": "Static Pods are managed directly by the kubelet daemon on a specific node

without the API server observing them. [...] the kubelet on each node watches a specific directory for static pods. The kubelet on each node acts as the scheduler and controller for its own static pods." This confirms that the kubelet manages them locally

bypassing the central scheduler.

Source: Kubernetes Authors. (n.d.). Static Pods. Kubernetes Documentation. Retrieved from https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/configure-pod-container/static-pod/

2. Kubernetes Documentation

"Kubelet": The kubelet configuration options

specifically --pod-manifest-path

define the mechanism for discovering static Pods. There is no mention of a specific numerical limit for static Pods

nor is their deployment conditional on the scheduler's state.

Source: Kubernetes Authors. (n.d.). kubelet. Kubernetes Documentation. Retrieved from https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/command-line-tools-reference/kubelet/

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