DevOps: What is Kubernetes kubelet?

kubelet — agent running on each node that manages Pods.

Responsibilities:

• Registers node with API server.
• Watches for PodSpec changes.
• Creates and deletes containers.
• Reports node and Pod status.
• Runs health checks (liveness, readiness).

1# Check kubelet status
2systemctl status kubelet
3journalctl -u kubelet -f
4
5# Kubelet config
6cat /var/lib/kubelet/config.yaml
7
8# Check node status
9kubectl describe node node1 | grep -A 5 Conditions
10kubectl get node node1 -o jsonpath='{.status.conditions}' | jq

Key configuration:

• --pod-manifest-path: static Pod directory.
• --config: kubelet configuration file.
• --node-labels: custom node labels.