Kubernetes Control Plane Components and Interactions

Kubernetes Control Plane Components and Interactions An architecture diagram generated by Archify. kube-apiserver · Exposes the Kubernetes API · Control Plane kube-apiserver Exposes the Kubernetes API etcd · Key-value store · Control Plane etcd Key-value store kube-scheduler · Schedules pods to nodes · Control Plane kube-scheduler Schedules pods to nodes kube-controller-manager · Runs controllers · Control Plane kube-controller-manager Runs controllers cloud-controller-manager · Cloud provider integration · Control Plane cloud-controller-manager Cloud provider integration kubelet · Node agent · Worker Node kubelet Node agent kube-proxy · Network rules / connection forwarding · Worker Node kube-proxy Network rules / connection forwarding Container Runtime · Docker / containerd / CRI-O · Worker Node Container Runtime Docker / containerd / CRI-O Control Plane Worker Node Legend Backend Database Cloud

Control Plane Components

  • • kube-apiserver: exposes the Kubernetes API
  • • etcd: key-value store holding cluster data
  • • kube-scheduler: schedules pods to nodes
  • • kube-controller-manager: runs controllers
  • • cloud-controller-manager: interacts with cloud providers

Node Components

  • • kubelet: agent on each node that ensures pods and containers are running
  • • kube-proxy: maintains network rules and handles connection forwarding
  • • Container Runtime: runs containers (Docker, containerd, CRI-O, etc.)