Roles for Nodes in Kubernetes

This section describes the roles for etcd nodes, controlplane nodes, and worker nodes in Kubernetes, and how the roles work together in a cluster.

This diagram is applicable to Kubernetes clusters launched with Rancher using RKE..

Cluster diagram
Figure 1. Lines show the traffic flow between components. Colors are used purely for visual aid

etcd

Nodes with the etcd role run etcd, which is a consistent and highly available key value store used as Kubernetes’ backing store for all cluster data. etcd replicates the data to each node.

Nodes with the etcd role are shown as Unschedulable in the UI, meaning no pods will be scheduled to these nodes by default.

controlplane

Nodes with the controlplane role run the Kubernetes master components (excluding etcd, as it’s a separate role). See Kubernetes: Master Components for a detailed list of components.

Nodes with the controlplane role are shown as Unschedulable in the UI, meaning no pods will be scheduled to these nodes by default.

kube-apiserver

The Kubernetes API server (kube-apiserver) scales horizontally. Each node with the role controlplane will be added to the NGINX proxy on the nodes with components that need to access the Kubernetes API server. This means that if a node becomes unreachable, the local NGINX proxy on the node will forward the request to another Kubernetes API server in the list.

kube-controller-manager

The Kubernetes controller manager uses leader election using an endpoint in Kubernetes. One instance of the kube-controller-manager will create an entry in the Kubernetes endpoints and updates that entry in a configured interval. Other instances will see an active leader and wait for that entry to expire (for example, when a node is unresponsive).

kube-scheduler

The Kubernetes scheduler uses leader election using an endpoint in Kubernetes. One instance of the kube-scheduler will create an entry in the Kubernetes endpoints and updates that entry in a configured interval. Other instances will see an active leader and wait for that entry to expire (for example, when a node is unresponsive).

worker

Nodes with the worker role run the Kubernetes node components. See Kubernetes: Node Components for a detailed list of components.

References