2.6. Controlling pod placement using node taints

You can specify how long a pod can remain bound to a node before being evicted by specifying the tolerationSeconds parameter in the Pod specification or MachineSet object. If a taint with the NoExecute effect is added to a node, a pod that does tolerate the taint, which has the tolerationSeconds parameter, the pod is not evicted until that time period expires.

spec:
....
  template:
....
    spec
      tolerations:
      - key: "key1"
        operator: "Equal"
        value: "value1"
        effect: "NoExecute"
        tolerationSeconds: 3600

Here, if this pod is running but does not have a matching toleration, the pod stays bound to the node for 3,600 seconds and then be evicted. If the taint is removed before that time, the pod is not evicted.

You can put multiple taints on the same node and multiple tolerations on the same pod. OpenShift Container Platform processes multiple taints and tolerations as follows:

For example:

In this case, the pod cannot be scheduled onto the node, because there is no toleration matching the third taint. The pod continues running if it is already running on the node when the taint is added, because the third taint is the only one of the three that is not tolerated by the pod.

The Taint Nodes By Condition feature, which is enabled by default, automatically taints nodes that report conditions such as memory pressure and disk pressure. If a node reports a condition, a taint is added until the condition clears. The taints have the NoSchedule effect, which means no pod can be scheduled on the node unless the pod has a matching toleration.

The scheduler checks for these taints on nodes before scheduling pods. If the taint is present, the pod is scheduled on a different node. Because the scheduler checks for taints and not the actual node conditions, you configure the scheduler to ignore some of these node conditions by adding appropriate pod tolerations.

To ensure backward compatibility, the daemon set controller automatically adds the following tolerations to all daemons:

You can also add arbitrary tolerations to daemon sets.

The Taint-Based Evictions feature, which is enabled by default, evicts pods from a node that experiences specific conditions, such as not-ready and unreachable. When a node experiences one of these conditions, OpenShift Container Platform automatically adds taints to the node, and starts evicting and rescheduling the pods on different nodes.

Taint Based Evictions have a NoExecute effect, where any pod that does not tolerate the taint is evicted immediately and any pod that does tolerate the taint will never be evicted, unless the pod uses the tolerationSeconds parameter.

The tolerationSeconds parameter allows you to specify how long a pod stays bound to a node that has a node condition. If the condition still exists after the tolerationSeconds period, the taint remains on the node and the pods with a matching toleration are evicted. If the condition clears before the tolerationSeconds period, pods with matching tolerations are not removed.

If you use the tolerationSeconds parameter with no value, pods are never evicted because of the not ready and unreachable node conditions.

OpenShift Container Platform automatically adds a toleration for node.kubernetes.io/not-ready and node.kubernetes.io/unreachable with tolerationSeconds=300, unless the Pod configuration specifies either toleration.

spec:
....
  template:
....
    spec
      tolerations:
      - key: node.kubernetes.io/not-ready
        operator: Exists
        effect: NoExecute
        tolerationSeconds: 300 1
      - key: node.kubernetes.io/unreachable
        operator: Exists
        effect: NoExecute
        tolerationSeconds: 300

You can configure these tolerations as needed. For example, if you have an application with a lot of local state, you might want to keep the pods bound to node for a longer time in the event of network partition, allowing for the partition to recover and avoiding pod eviction.

Pods spawned by a daemon set are created with NoExecute tolerations for the following taints with no tolerationSeconds:

As a result, daemon set pods are never evicted because of these node conditions.

You can configure a pod to tolerate all taints by adding an operator: "Exists" toleration with no key and value parameters. Pods with this toleration are not removed from a node that has taints.

spec:
....
  template:
....
    spec
      tolerations:
      - operator: "Exists"

You can add taints to nodes using a machine set. All nodes associated with the MachineSet object are updated with the taint. Tolerations respond to taints added by a machine set in the same manner as taints added directly to the nodes.

If you want to dedicate a set of nodes for exclusive use by a particular set of users, add a toleration to their pods. Then, add a corresponding taint to those nodes. The pods with the tolerations are allowed to use the tainted nodes, or any other nodes in the cluster.

If you want ensure the pods are scheduled to only those tainted nodes, also add a label to the same set of nodes and add a node affinity to the pods so that the pods can only be scheduled onto nodes with that label.

In a cluster where a small subset of nodes have specialized hardware, you can use taints and tolerations to keep pods that do not need the specialized hardware off of those nodes, leaving the nodes for pods that do need the specialized hardware. You can also require pods that need specialized hardware to use specific nodes.

You can achieve this by adding a toleration to pods that need the special hardware and tainting the nodes that have the specialized hardware.