The Kubernetes API is a resource-based (RESTful) programmatic interface
provided via HTTP. It supports retrieving, creating, updating, and deleting
primary resources via the standard HTTP verbs (POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE,
GET).
For some resources, the API includes additional subresources that allow
fine-grained authorization (such as separate views for Pod details and
log retrievals), and can accept and serve those resources in different
representations for convenience or efficiency.
in the Kubernetes API, watch is a verb that is used to track changes to an object in Kubernetes as a stream.
It is used for the efficient detection of changes.
Kubernetes also provides consistent list operations so that API clients can
effectively cache, track, and synchronize the state of resources.
Kubernetes generally leverages common RESTful terminology to describe the
API concepts:
Almost all object resource types support the standard HTTP verbs - GET, POST, PUT, PATCH,
and DELETE. Kubernetes also uses its own verbs, which are often written in lowercase to distinguish
them from HTTP verbs.
You can also access collections of resources (for example: listing all Nodes).
The following paths are used to retrieve collections and resources:
Since a namespace is a cluster-scoped resource type, you can retrieve the list
(“collection”) of all namespaces with GET /api/v1/namespaces and details about
a particular namespace with GET /api/v1/namespaces/NAME.
The verbs supported for each subresource will differ depending on the object -
see the API reference for more information. It
is not possible to access sub-resources across multiple resources - generally a new
virtual resource type would be used if that becomes necessary.
Over HTTP, Kubernetes supports JSON and Protobuf wire encodings.
The Kubernetes API implements standard HTTP content type negotiation: passing an
Accept header with a GET call will request that the server tries to return
a response in your preferred media type. If you want to send an object in Protobuf to
the server for a PUT or POST request, you must set the Content-Type request header
appropriately.
If you request an available media type, the API server returns a response with a suitable
Content-Type; if none of the media types you request are supported, the API server returns
a 406 Not acceptable error message.
All built-in resource types support the application/json media type.
You can use both techniques together and use Kubernetes' Protobuf encoding to interact with any API that
supports it, for both reads and writes. Only some API resource types are compatible
with Protobuf.
The wrapper format is:
A four byte magic number prefix:
Bytes 0-3: "k8s\x00" [0x6b, 0x38, 0x73, 0x00]
An encoded Protobuf message with the following IDL:
message Unknown {
// typeMeta should have the string values for "kind" and "apiVersion" as set on the JSON object
optional TypeMeta typeMeta = 1;
// raw will hold the complete serialized object in protobuf. See the protobuf definitions in the client libraries for a given kind.
optional bytes raw = 2;
// contentEncoding is encoding used for the raw data. Unspecified means no encoding.
optional string contentEncoding = 3;
// contentType is the serialization method used to serialize 'raw'. Unspecified means application/vnd.kubernetes.protobuf and is usually
// omitted.
optional string contentType = 4;
}
message TypeMeta {
// apiVersion is the group/version for this type
optional string apiVersion = 1;
// kind is the name of the object schema. A protobuf definition should exist for this object.
optional string kind = 2;
}
Note:
Clients that receive a response in application/vnd.kubernetes.protobuf that does
not match the expected prefix should reject the response, as future versions may need
to alter the serialization format in an incompatible way and will do so by changing
the prefix.Compatibility with Kubernetes Protobuf
Not all API resource types support Kubernetes' Protobuf encoding; specifically, Protobuf isn't
available for resources that are defined as
CustomResourceDefinitions
or are served via the
aggregation layer.
As a client, if you might need to work with extension types you should specify multiple
content types in the request Accept header to support fallback to JSON.
For example:
Accept: application/vnd.kubernetes.protobuf, application/json
Efficient detection of changes
The Kubernetes API allows clients to make an initial request for an object or a
collection, and then to track changes since that initial request: a watch. Clients
can send a list or a get and then make a follow-up watch request.
To make this change tracking possible, every Kubernetes object has a resourceVersion
field representing the version of that resource as stored in the underlying persistence
layer. When retrieving a collection of resources (either namespace or cluster scoped),
the response from the API server contains a resourceVersion value. The client can
use that resourceVersion to initiate a watch against the API server.
When you send a watch request, the API server responds with a stream of
changes. These changes itemize the outcome of operations (such as create, delete,
and update) that occurred after the resourceVersion you specified as a parameter
to the watch request. The overall watch mechanism allows a client to fetch
the current state and then subscribe to subsequent changes, without missing any events.
If a client watch is disconnected then that client can start a new watch from
the last returned resourceVersion; the client could also perform a fresh get /
list request and begin again. See Resource Version Semantics
for more detail.
For example:
List all of the pods in a given namespace.
GET /api/v1/namespaces/test/pods
---
200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{
"kind": "PodList",
"apiVersion": "v1",
"metadata": {"resourceVersion":"10245"},
"items": [...]
}
Starting from resource version 10245, receive notifications of any API operations
(such as create, delete, patch or update) that affect Pods in the
test namespace. Each change notification is a JSON document. The HTTP response body
(served as application/json) consists a series of JSON documents.
GET /api/v1/namespaces/test/pods?watch=1&resourceVersion=10245
---
200 OK
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: application/json
{
"type": "ADDED",
"object": {"kind": "Pod", "apiVersion": "v1", "metadata": {"resourceVersion": "10596", ...}, ...}
}
{
"type": "MODIFIED",
"object": {"kind": "Pod", "apiVersion": "v1", "metadata": {"resourceVersion": "11020", ...}, ...}
}
...
A given Kubernetes server will only preserve a historical record of changes for a
limited time. Clusters using etcd 3 preserve changes in the last 5 minutes by default.
When the requested watch operations fail because the historical version of that
resource is not available, clients must handle the case by recognizing the status code
410 Gone, clearing their local cache, performing a new get or list operation,
and starting the watch from the resourceVersion that was returned.
For subscribing to collections, Kubernetes client libraries typically offer some form
of standard tool for this list-then-watch logic. (In the Go client library,
this is called a Reflector and is located in the k8s.io/client-go/tools/cache package.)
Watch bookmarks
To mitigate the impact of short history window, the Kubernetes API provides a watch
event named BOOKMARK. It is a special kind of event to mark that all changes up
to a given resourceVersion the client is requesting have already been sent. The
document representing the BOOKMARK event is of the type requested by the request,
but only includes a .metadata.resourceVersion field. For example:
GET /api/v1/namespaces/test/pods?watch=1&resourceVersion=10245&allowWatchBookmarks=true
---
200 OK
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: application/json
{
"type": "ADDED",
"object": {"kind": "Pod", "apiVersion": "v1", "metadata": {"resourceVersion": "10596", ...}, ...}
}
...
{
"type": "BOOKMARK",
"object": {"kind": "Pod", "apiVersion": "v1", "metadata": {"resourceVersion": "12746"} }
}
As a client, you can request BOOKMARK events by setting the
allowWatchBookmarks=true query parameter to a watch request, but you shouldn't
assume bookmarks are returned at any specific interval, nor can clients assume that
the API server will send any BOOKMARK event even when requested.
Streaming lists
FEATURE STATE:
Kubernetes v1.27 [alpha] (enabled by default: false)
On large clusters, retrieving the collection of some resource types may result in
a significant increase of resource usage (primarily RAM) on the control plane.
In order to alleviate its impact and simplify the user experience of the list + watch
pattern, Kubernetes v1.27 introduces as an alpha feature the support
for requesting the initial state (previously requested via the list request) as part of
the watch request.
Provided that the WatchList feature gate
is enabled, this can be achieved by specifying sendInitialEvents=true as query string parameter
in a watch request. If set, the API server starts the watch stream with synthetic init
events (of type ADDED) to build the whole state of all existing objects followed by a
BOOKMARK event
(if requested via allowWatchBookmarks=true option). The bookmark event includes the resource version
to which is synced. After sending the bookmark event, the API server continues as for any other watch
request.
When you set sendInitialEvents=true in the query string, Kubernetes also requires that you set
resourceVersionMatch to NotOlderThan value.
If you provided resourceVersion in the query string without providing a value or don't provide
it at all, this is interpreted as a request for consistent read;
the bookmark event is sent when the state is synced at least to the moment of a consistent read
from when the request started to be processed. If you specify resourceVersion (in the query string),
the bookmark event is sent when the state is synced at least to the provided resource version.
Example
An example: you want to watch a collection of Pods. For that collection, the current resource version
is 10245 and there are two pods: foo and bar. Then sending the following request (explicitly requesting
consistent read by setting empty resource version using resourceVersion=) could result
in the following sequence of events:
GET /api/v1/namespaces/test/pods?watch=1&sendInitialEvents=true&allowWatchBookmarks=true&resourceVersion=&resourceVersionMatch=NotOlderThan
---
200 OK
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: application/json
{
"type": "ADDED",
"object": {"kind": "Pod", "apiVersion": "v1", "metadata": {"resourceVersion": "8467", "name": "foo"}, ...}
}
{
"type": "ADDED",
"object": {"kind": "Pod", "apiVersion": "v1", "metadata": {"resourceVersion": "5726", "name": "bar"}, ...}
}
{
"type": "BOOKMARK",
"object": {"kind": "Pod", "apiVersion": "v1", "metadata": {"resourceVersion": "10245"} }
}
...
<followed by regular watch stream starting from resourceVersion="10245">
Response compression
FEATURE STATE:
Kubernetes v1.16 [beta] (enabled by default: true)
APIResponseCompression is an option that allows the API server to compress the responses for get
and list requests, reducing the network bandwidth and improving the performance of large-scale clusters.
It is enabled by default since Kubernetes 1.16 and it can be disabled by including
APIResponseCompression=false in the --feature-gates flag on the API server.
API response compression can significantly reduce the size of the response, especially for large resources or
collections.
For example, a list request for pods can return hundreds of kilobytes or even megabytes of data,
depending on the number of pods and their attributes. By compressing the response, the network bandwidth
can be saved and the latency can be reduced.
To verify if APIResponseCompression is working, you can send a get or list request to the
API server with an Accept-Encoding header, and check the response size and headers. For example:
GET /api/v1/pods
Accept-Encoding: gzip
---
200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
content-encoding: gzip
...
The content-encoding header indicates that the response is compressed with gzip.
Retrieving large results sets in chunks
FEATURE STATE:
Kubernetes v1.29 [stable] (enabled by default: true)
On large clusters, retrieving the collection of some resource types may result in
very large responses that can impact the server and client. For instance, a cluster
may have tens of thousands of Pods, each of which is equivalent to roughly 2 KiB of
encoded JSON. Retrieving all pods across all namespaces may result in a very large
response (10-20MB) and consume a large amount of server resources.
The Kubernetes API server supports the ability to break a single large collection request
into many smaller chunks while preserving the consistency of the total request. Each
chunk can be returned sequentially which reduces both the total size of the request and
allows user-oriented clients to display results incrementally to improve responsiveness.
You can request that the API server handles a list by serving single collection
using pages (which Kubernetes calls chunks). To retrieve a single collection in
chunks, two query parameters limit and continue are supported on requests against
collections, and a response field continue is returned from all list operations
in the collection's metadata field. A client should specify the maximum results they
wish to receive in each chunk with limit and the server will return up to limit
resources in the result and include a continue value if there are more resources
in the collection.
As an API client, you can then pass this continue value to the API server on the
next request, to instruct the server to return the next page (chunk) of results. By
continuing until the server returns an empty continue value, you can retrieve the
entire collection.
Like a watch operation, a continue token will expire after a short amount
of time (by default 5 minutes) and return a 410 Gone if more results cannot be
returned. In this case, the client will need to start from the beginning or omit the
limit parameter.
For example, if there are 1,253 pods on the cluster and you want to receive chunks
of 500 pods at a time, request those chunks as follows:
List all of the pods on a cluster, retrieving up to 500 pods each time.
GET /api/v1/pods?limit=500
---
200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{
"kind": "PodList",
"apiVersion": "v1",
"metadata": {
"resourceVersion":"10245",
"continue": "ENCODED_CONTINUE_TOKEN",
"remainingItemCount": 753,
...
},
"items": [...] // returns pods 1-500
}
Continue the previous call, retrieving the next set of 500 pods.
GET /api/v1/pods?limit=500&continue=ENCODED_CONTINUE_TOKEN
---
200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{
"kind": "PodList",
"apiVersion": "v1",
"metadata": {
"resourceVersion":"10245",
"continue": "ENCODED_CONTINUE_TOKEN_2",
"remainingItemCount": 253,
...
},
"items": [...] // returns pods 501-1000
}
Continue the previous call, retrieving the last 253 pods.
GET /api/v1/pods?limit=500&continue=ENCODED_CONTINUE_TOKEN_2
---
200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{
"kind": "PodList",
"apiVersion": "v1",
"metadata": {
"resourceVersion":"10245",
"continue": "", // continue token is empty because we have reached the end of the list
...
},
"items": [...] // returns pods 1001-1253
}
Notice that the resourceVersion of the collection remains constant across each request,
indicating the server is showing you a consistent snapshot of the pods. Pods that
are created, updated, or deleted after version 10245 would not be shown unless
you make a separate list request without the continue token. This allows you
to break large requests into smaller chunks and then perform a watch operation
on the full set without missing any updates.
remainingItemCount is the number of subsequent items in the collection that are not
included in this response. If the list request contained label or field
selectors then the number of
remaining items is unknown and the API server does not include a remainingItemCount
field in its response.
If the list is complete (either because it is not chunking, or because this is the
last chunk), then there are no more remaining items and the API server does not include a
remainingItemCount field in its response. The intended use of the remainingItemCount
is estimating the size of a collection.
Collections
In Kubernetes terminology, the response you get from a list is
a collection. However, Kubernetes defines concrete kinds for
collections of different types of resource. Collections have a kind
named for the resource kind, with List appended.
When you query the API for a particular type, all items returned by that query are
of that type. For example, when you list Services, the collection response
has kind set to
ServiceList;
each item in that collection represents a single Service. For example:
GET /api/v1/services
{
"kind": "ServiceList",
"apiVersion": "v1",
"metadata": {
"resourceVersion": "2947301"
},
"items": [
{
"metadata": {
"name": "kubernetes",
"namespace": "default",
...
"metadata": {
"name": "kube-dns",
"namespace": "kube-system",
...
There are dozens of collection types (such as PodList, ServiceList,
and NodeList) defined in the Kubernetes API.
You can get more information about each collection type from the
Kubernetes API documentation.
Some tools, such as kubectl, represent the Kubernetes collection
mechanism slightly differently from the Kubernetes API itself.
Because the output of kubectl might include the response from
multiple list operations at the API level, kubectl represents
a list of items using kind: List. For example:
kubectl get services -A -o yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: List
metadata:
resourceVersion: ""
selfLink: ""
items:
- apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
creationTimestamp: "2021-06-03T14:54:12Z"
labels:
component: apiserver
provider: kubernetes
name: kubernetes
namespace: default
...
- apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
annotations:
prometheus.io/port: "9153"
prometheus.io/scrape: "true"
creationTimestamp: "2021-06-03T14:54:14Z"
labels:
k8s-app: kube-dns
kubernetes.io/cluster-service: "true"
kubernetes.io/name: CoreDNS
name: kube-dns
namespace: kube-system
Note:
Keep in mind that the Kubernetes API does not have a kind named List.
kind: List is a client-side, internal implementation detail for processing
collections that might be of different kinds of object. Avoid depending on
kind: List in automation or other code.
Receiving resources as Tables
When you run kubectl get, the default output format is a simple tabular
representation of one or more instances of a particular resource type. In the past,
clients were required to reproduce the tabular and describe output implemented in
kubectl to perform simple lists of objects.
A few limitations of that approach include non-trivial logic when dealing with
certain objects. Additionally, types provided by API aggregation or third party
resources are not known at compile time. This means that generic implementations
had to be in place for types unrecognized by a client.
In order to avoid potential limitations as described above, clients may request
the Table representation of objects, delegating specific details of printing to the
server. The Kubernetes API implements standard HTTP content type negotiation: passing
an Accept header containing a value of application/json;as=Table;g=meta.k8s.io;v=v1
with a GET call will request that the server return objects in the Table content
type.
For example, list all of the pods on a cluster in the Table format.
GET /api/v1/pods
Accept: application/json;as=Table;g=meta.k8s.io;v=v1
---
200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{
"kind": "Table",
"apiVersion": "meta.k8s.io/v1",
...
"columnDefinitions": [
...
]
}
For API resource types that do not have a custom Table definition known to the control
plane, the API server returns a default Table response that consists of the resource's
name and creationTimestamp fields.
GET /apis/crd.example.com/v1alpha1/namespaces/default/resources
---
200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
...
{
"kind": "Table",
"apiVersion": "meta.k8s.io/v1",
...
"columnDefinitions": [
{
"name": "Name",
"type": "string",
...
},
{
"name": "Created At",
"type": "date",
...
}
]
}
Not all API resource types support a Table response; for example, a
CustomResourceDefinitions
might not define field-to-table mappings, and an APIService that
extends the core Kubernetes API
might not serve Table responses at all. If you are implementing a client that
uses the Table information and must work against all resource types, including
extensions, you should make requests that specify multiple content types in the
Accept header. For example:
Accept: application/json;as=Table;g=meta.k8s.io;v=v1, application/json
Resource deletion
When you delete a resource this takes place in two phases.
- finalization
- removal
{
"kind": "ConfigMap",
"apiVersion": "v1",
"metadata": {
"finalizers": ["url.io/neat-finalization", "other-url.io/my-finalizer"],
"deletionTimestamp": nil,
}
}
When a client first sends a delete to request the removal of a resource, the .metadata.deletionTimestamp is set to the current time.
Once the .metadata.deletionTimestamp is set, external controllers that act on finalizers
may start performing their cleanup work at any time, in any order.
Order is not enforced between finalizers because it would introduce significant
risk of stuck .metadata.finalizers.
The .metadata.finalizers field is shared: any actor with permission can reorder it.
If the finalizer list were processed in order, then this might lead to a situation
in which the component responsible for the first finalizer in the list is
waiting for some signal (field value, external system, or other) produced by a
component responsible for a finalizer later in the list, resulting in a deadlock.
Without enforced ordering, finalizers are free to order amongst themselves and are
not vulnerable to ordering changes in the list.
Once the last finalizer is removed, the resource is actually removed from etcd.
Single resource API
The Kubernetes API verbs get, create, update, patch,
delete and proxy support single resources only.
These verbs with single resource support have no support for submitting multiple
resources together in an ordered or unordered list or transaction.
When clients (including kubectl) act on a set of resources, the client makes a series
of single-resource API requests, then aggregates the responses if needed.
By contrast, the Kubernetes API verbs list and watch allow getting multiple
resources, and deletecollection allows deleting multiple resources.
Field validation
Kubernetes always validates the type of fields. For example, if a field in the
API is defined as a number, you cannot set the field to a text value. If a field
is defined as an array of strings, you can only provide an array. Some fields
allow you to omit them, other fields are required. Omitting a required field
from an API request is an error.
If you make a request with an extra field, one that the cluster's control plane
does not recognize, then the behavior of the API server is more complicated.
By default, the API server drops fields that it does not recognize
from an input that it receives (for example, the JSON body of a PUT request).
There are two situations where the API server drops fields that you supplied in
an HTTP request.
These situations are:
- The field is unrecognized because it is not in the resource's OpenAPI schema. (One
exception to this is for CRDs that explicitly choose not to prune unknown
fields via
x-kubernetes-preserve-unknown-fields). - The field is duplicated in the object.
Validation for unrecognized or duplicate fields
FEATURE STATE:
Kubernetes v1.27 [stable] (enabled by default: true)
From 1.25 onward, unrecognized or duplicate fields in an object are detected via
validation on the server when you use HTTP verbs that can submit data (POST, PUT, and PATCH). Possible levels of
validation are Ignore, Warn (default), and Strict.
Ignore- The API server succeeds in handling the request as it would without the erroneous fields
being set, dropping all unknown and duplicate fields and giving no indication it
has done so.
Warn- (Default) The API server succeeds in handling the request, and reports a
warning to the client. The warning is sent using the
Warning: response header,
adding one warning item for each unknown or duplicate field. For more
information about warnings and the Kubernetes API, see the blog article
Warning: Helpful Warnings Ahead. Strict- The API server rejects the request with a 400 Bad Request error when it
detects any unknown or duplicate fields. The response message from the API
server specifies all the unknown or duplicate fields that the API server has
detected.
The field validation level is set by the fieldValidation query parameter.
Note:
If you submit a request that specifies an unrecognized field, and that is also invalid for
a different reason (for example, the request provides a string value where the API expects
an integer for a known field), then the API server responds with a 400 Bad Request error, but will
not provide any information on unknown or duplicate fields (only which fatal
error it encountered first).
You always receive an error response in this case, no matter what field validation level you requested.
Tools that submit requests to the server (such as kubectl), might set their own
defaults that are different from the Warn validation level that the API server uses
by default.
The kubectl tool uses the --validate flag to set the level of field
validation. It accepts the values ignore, warn, and strict while
also accepting the values true (equivalent to strict) and false
(equivalent to ignore). The default validation setting for kubectl is
--validate=true, which means strict server-side field validation.
When kubectl cannot connect to an API server with field validation (API servers
prior to Kubernetes 1.27), it will fall back to using client-side validation.
Client-side validation will be removed entirely in a future version of kubectl.
Note:
Prior to Kubernetes 1.25 kubectl --validate was used to toggle client-side validation on or off as
a boolean flag.Dry-run
FEATURE STATE:
Kubernetes v1.19 [stable] (enabled by default: true)
When you use HTTP verbs that can modify resources (POST, PUT, PATCH, and
DELETE), you can submit your request in a dry run mode. Dry run mode helps to
evaluate a request through the typical request stages (admission chain, validation,
merge conflicts) up until persisting objects to storage. The response body for the
request is as close as possible to a non-dry-run response. Kubernetes guarantees that
dry-run requests will not be persisted in storage or have any other side effects.
Make a dry-run request
Dry-run is triggered by setting the dryRun query parameter. This parameter is a
string, working as an enum, and the only accepted values are:
- [no value set]
- Allow side effects. You request this with a query string such as
?dryRun
or ?dryRun&pretty=true. The response is the final object that would have been
persisted, or an error if the request could not be fulfilled. All- Every stage runs as normal, except for the final storage stage where side effects
are prevented.
When you set ?dryRun=All, any relevant
admission controllers
are run, validating admission controllers check the request post-mutation, merge is
performed on PATCH, fields are defaulted, and schema validation occurs. The changes
are not persisted to the underlying storage, but the final object which would have
been persisted is still returned to the user, along with the normal status code.
If the non-dry-run version of a request would trigger an admission controller that has
side effects, the request will be failed rather than risk an unwanted side effect. All
built in admission control plugins support dry-run. Additionally, admission webhooks can
declare in their
configuration object
that they do not have side effects, by setting their sideEffects field to None.
Note:
If a webhook actually does have side effects, then the sideEffects field should be
set to "NoneOnDryRun". That change is appropriate provided that the webhook is also
be modified to understand the DryRun field in AdmissionReview, and to prevent side
effects on any request marked as dry runs.Here is an example dry-run request that uses ?dryRun=All:
POST /api/v1/namespaces/test/pods?dryRun=All
Content-Type: application/json
Accept: application/json
The response would look the same as for non-dry-run request, but the values of some
generated fields may differ.
Generated values
Some values of an object are typically generated before the object is persisted. It
is important not to rely upon the values of these fields set by a dry-run request,
since these values will likely be different in dry-run mode from when the real
request is made. Some of these fields are:
name: if generateName is set, name will have a unique random namecreationTimestamp / deletionTimestamp: records the time of creation/deletionUID: uniquely identifies
the object and is randomly generated (non-deterministic)resourceVersion: tracks the persisted version of the object- Any field set by a mutating admission controller
- For the
Service resource: Ports or IP addresses that the kube-apiserver assigns to Service objects
Dry-run authorization
Authorization for dry-run and non-dry-run requests is identical. Thus, to make
a dry-run request, you must be authorized to make the non-dry-run request.
For example, to run a dry-run patch for a Deployment, you must be authorized
to perform that patch. Here is an example of a rule for Kubernetes
RBAC that allows patching
Deployments:
rules:
- apiGroups: ["apps"]
resources: ["deployments"]
verbs: ["patch"]
See Authorization Overview.
Updates to existing resources
Kubernetes provides several ways to update existing objects.
You can read choosing an update mechanism to
learn about which approach might be best for your use case.
You can overwrite (update) an existing resource - for example, a ConfigMap -
using an HTTP PUT. For a PUT request, it is the client's responsibility to specify
the resourceVersion (taking this from the object being updated). Kubernetes uses
that resourceVersion information so that the API server can detect lost updates
and reject requests made by a client that is out of date with the cluster.
In the event that the resource has changed (the resourceVersion the client
provided is stale), the API server returns a 409 Conflict error response.
Instead of sending a PUT request, the client can send an instruction to the API
server to patch an existing resource. A patch is typically appropriate
if the change that the client wants to make isn't conditional on the existing data.
Clients that need effective detection of lost updates should consider
making their request conditional on the existing resourceVersion (either HTTP PUT or HTTP PATCH),
and then handle any retries that are needed in case there is a conflict.
The Kubernetes API supports four different PATCH operations, determined by their
corresponding HTTP Content-Type header:
application/apply-patch+yaml- Server Side Apply YAML (a Kubernetes-specific extension, based on YAML).
All JSON documents are valid YAML, so you can also submit JSON using this
media type. See Server Side Apply serialization
for more details.
To Kubernetes, this is a create operation if the object does not exist,
or a patch operation if the object already exists. application/json-patch+json- JSON Patch, as defined in RFC6902.
A JSON patch is a sequence of operations that are executed on the resource;
for example
{"op": "add", "path": "/a/b/c", "value": [ "foo", "bar" ]}.
To Kubernetes, this is a patch operation.A patch using application/json-patch+json can include conditions to
validate consistency, allowing the operation to fail if those conditions
are not met (for example, to avoid a lost update).
application/merge-patch+json- JSON Merge Patch, as defined in RFC7386.
A JSON Merge Patch is essentially a partial representation of the resource.
The submitted JSON is combined with the current resource to create a new one,
then the new one is saved.
To Kubernetes, this is a patch operation. application/strategic-merge-patch+json- Strategic Merge Patch (a Kubernetes-specific extension based on JSON).
Strategic Merge Patch is a custom implementation of JSON Merge Patch.
You can only use Strategic Merge Patch with built-in APIs, or with aggregated
API servers that have special support for it. You cannot use
application/strategic-merge-patch+json with any API
defined using a CustomResourceDefinition.Note:
The Kubernetes server side apply mechanism has superseded Strategic Merge
Patch.
Kubernetes' Server Side Apply
feature allows the control plane to track managed fields for newly created objects.
Server Side Apply provides a clear pattern for managing field conflicts,
offers server-side apply and update operations, and replaces the
client-side functionality of kubectl apply.
For Server-Side Apply, Kubernetes treats the request as a create if the object
does not yet exist, and a patch otherwise. For other requests that use PATCH
at the HTTP level, the logical Kubernetes operation is always patch.
See Server Side Apply for more details.
Choosing an update mechanism
HTTP PUT to replace existing resource
The update (HTTP PUT) operation is simple to implement and flexible,
but has drawbacks:
- You need to handle conflicts where the
resourceVersion of the object changes
between your client reading it and trying to write it back. Kubernetes always
detects the conflict, but you as the client author need to implement retries. - You might accidentally drop fields if you decode an object locally (for example,
using client-go, you could receive fields that your client does not know how to
handle - and then drop them as part of your update.
- If there's a lot of contention on the object (even on a field, or set of fields,
that you're not trying to edit), you might have trouble sending the update.
The problem is worse for larger objects and for objects with many fields.
HTTP PATCH using JSON Patch
A patch update is helpful, because:
- As you're only sending differences, you have less data to send in the
PATCH
request. - You can make changes that rely on existing values, such as copying the
value of a particular field into an annotation.
- Unlike with an update (HTTP
PUT), making your change can happen right away
even if there are frequent changes to unrelated fields): you usually would
not need to retry.- You might still need to specify the
resourceVersion (to match an existing object)
if you want to be extra careful to avoid lost updates - It's still good practice to write in some retry logic in case of errors.
- You can use test conditions to careful craft specific update conditions.
For example, you can increment a counter without reading it if the existing
value matches what you expect. You can do this with no lost update risk,
even if the object has changed in other ways since you last wrote to it.
(If the test condition fails, you can fall back to reading the current value
and then write back the changed number).
However:
- You need more local (client) logic to build the patch; it helps a lot if you have
a library implementation of JSON Patch, or even for making a JSON Patch specifically against Kubernetes.
- As the author of client software, you need to be careful when building the patch
(the HTTP request body) not to drop fields (the order of operations matters).
HTTP PATCH using Server-Side Apply
Server-Side Apply has some clear benefits:
- A single round trip: it rarely requires making a
GET request first.- and you can still detect conflicts for unexpected changes
- you have the option to force override a conflict, if appropriate
- Client implementations are easy to make.
- You get an atomic create-or-update operation without extra effort
(similar to
UPSERT in some SQL dialects).
However:
- Server-Side Apply does not work at all for field changes that depend on a current value of the object.
- You can only apply updates to objects. Some resources in the Kubernetes HTTP API are
not objects (they do not have a
.metadata field), and Server-Side Apply
is only relevant for Kubernetes objects.
Resource versions
Resource versions are strings that identify the server's internal version of an
object. Resource versions can be used by clients to determine when objects have
changed, or to express data consistency requirements when getting, listing and
watching resources. Resource versions must be treated as opaque by clients and passed
unmodified back to the server.
You must not assume resource versions are numeric or collatable. API clients may
only compare two resource versions for equality (this means that you must not compare
resource versions for greater-than or less-than relationships).
Clients find resource versions in resources, including the resources from the response
stream for a watch, or when using list to enumerate resources.
v1.meta/ObjectMeta -
The metadata.resourceVersion of a resource instance identifies the resource version the instance was last modified at.
v1.meta/ListMeta -
The metadata.resourceVersion of a resource collection (the response to a list) identifies the
resource version at which the collection was constructed.
resourceVersion parameters in query strings
The get, list, and watch operations support the resourceVersion parameter.
From version v1.19, Kubernetes API servers also support the resourceVersionMatch
parameter on list requests.
The API server interprets the resourceVersion parameter differently depending
on the operation you request, and on the value of resourceVersion. If you set
resourceVersionMatch then this also affects the way matching happens.
Semantics for get and list
For get and list, the semantics of resourceVersion are:
get:
Servers are not required to serve all older resource versions and may return a HTTP
410 (Gone) status code if a client requests a resourceVersion older than the
server has retained. Clients must be able to tolerate 410 (Gone) responses. See
Efficient detection of changes for details on
how to handle 410 (Gone) responses when watching resources.
Servers are not required to serve unrecognized resource versions. If you request
list or get for a resource version that the API server does not recognize,
then the API server may either:
If you request a resource version that an API server does not recognize, the
kube-apiserver additionally identifies its error responses with a "Too large resource
version" message.
