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Learn Kubernetes: A Deep Dive

The API Server

Explore the role of the Kubernetes API server as the control plane's front-end that manages resource requests through a RESTful HTTPS interface. Understand how it handles CRUD operations, authentication, and authorization to securely expose the API to both internal and external clients.

We'll cover the following...

Previously, we learned about the Kubernetes API. Let’s now take a closer look at the API server.

Introduction to the API server

The API server exposes the API over a RESTful HTTPS interface. It acts as the front-end to the API and is a bit like Grand Central Station for Kubernetes—everything talks to everything else via REST API calls to the API server. For example:

  • All kubectl commands go to the API server (creating, retrieving, updating, and deleting objects).

  • All kubelets watch the API server for new tasks and report the status to the API server.

  • All control plane services communicate with each other via the API server.

Let’s dig deeper and demystify more jargon.

The API server is a Kubernetes control plane service that some clusters run as a set of Pods in the kube-system Namespace. If we build and manage our own clusters, we need to ensure the control plane is highly available and has enough ...