Learn Kubernetes Weekly issue 136

Native macOS Workloads with Kubernetes, Pods breaking bad, FacetController: Infrastructure Changes at Lyft, Managing Stateful Workloads

18 Jun 2025

This issue is brought to you by Learnk8s — get started on your Kubernetes journey through comprehensive online, in-person or remote training.

This Thursday, I'm going live with Andrew to discuss one of the most persistent challenges in Kubernetes: resource management.

We will explore how algorithms can make more effective resource decisions than manual configuration!

Articles

1. How We Integrated Native macOS Workloads with Kubernetes

   Vitalii Horbachov

   Agoda built macOS-vz-Kubelet, a virtual kubelet running directly on macOS, to manage Apple Silicon VMs via Apple’s Virtualization Framework.

   It turns Mac Minis into schedulable Kubernetes nodes with OCI-backed VM images and hybrid Pod support.

2. Why our pods were breaking bad (and how we fixed them)

   Kshitij Nawandar

   Razorpay's UPI service pods were silently degrading over time.

   They used Go's pprof profiling to find that a global variable kept growing.

   The code fix reduced CPU usage from 5 cores to ~150m, memory from 700 MiB to 50 MiB, and API latency by half.

3. FacetController: How We Made Infrastructure Changes at Lyft Simple

   Miguel Molina

   Learn how Lyft developed FacetController, a CRD that simplifies infrastructure changes by creating a unified abstraction for microservice deployments.

   This enables rapid, safe updates across thousands of services without manual intervention.

4. Operational Considerations for Managing Stateful Workloads

   pampatzoglou

   This article provides a playbook for managing database workloads in Kubernetes, focusing on strategies for isolation, dynamic credential management, high availability, disaster recovery, and observability.

5. Can configuration languages (Config DSLs) solve configuration complexity?

   Brian Grant

   Can config DSLs solve config complexity?

   This article reviews various config languages (HCL, Jsonnet, etc.). It concludes that they offer some benefits but are ultimately micro-optimizations that don't solve the core IaC challenges.

6. GKE Cost Cutting — Three Key Lookout Points to View Your Potential Savings

   Olive Power

   Optimize GKE expenses by analyzing cluster costs, identifying at-risk workloads, and rightsizing resources using Google's built-in tools to reduce infrastructure spending by up to 50%.

Articles worth checking out:

• How Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) Decides Which Pod to Terminate When Scaling Down

• Enforcing Security in Confidential Containers with Kata Agent Policies

• The Frustrating Life Cycle of a Kyverno-Generated Resource

• Load Balancing gRPC Traffic with Istio

Join the next Advanced Kubernetes course

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Get your hands dirty with Kubernetes and learn what makes Kubernetes tick in a session packed with hands-on labs!

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Tutorials

1. Track privilege escalations with eBPF

   Chris Chinchilla

   This guide shows how to detect Kubernetes runtime threats (e.g. sudo misuse, suspicious file access) using Falco + eBPF, forward logs with Fluent Bit, and route them to Parseable log streams like falcowarn or falconotice.

2. \Why every platform engineer should care about Kubernetes operators

   Engin Diri

   This tutorial explains how kubernetes operators extend controllers with CRDs to automate complex app lifecycles.

   They manage deployments, upgrades, backups, and recovery, embedding domain-specific logic for self-managing systems.

3. Optimizing Kubernetes Resource Allocation with Robusta-KRR

   Timothy

   This article demonstrates how Robusta KRR analyzes pod CPU and memory usage, then recommends optimized resource requests and limits.

   Learn how to reduce overprovisioning and lower costs using automated metrics-based tuning in Kubernetes.

4. Demystifying Swap in Kubernetes: A Handbook for DevOps Engineers

   Robert Botez

   Kubernetes 1.28+ allows controlled swap via LimitedSwap for Burstable pods, avoiding OOMs during memory spikes.

   This guide shows how to set up swap files, enable Kubelet config flags, and test behavior.

5. Argo Rollouts  —  Canary Deployment with Istio

   Chuk-Munn Lee

   This article demonstrates how Argo Rollouts leverages Istio’s traffic routing—via VirtualService and DestinationRule—to enable advanced canary strategies: by percentage, HTTP header, and request mirroring.

Kubernetes jobs

1. • Software Engineer with Hootsuite

   • Salary: CA$98.4K to CA$137.8K a year

   • Location: remote from Canada

   • Tech stack: Kubernetes, Docker, Go, Javascript, Scala, PHP, Typescript, Redis, MySQL, Kafka

2. • Data Engineer with Chartbeat

   • Salary: $128K to $147K a year

   • Location: remote from the United States

   • Tech stack: Kubernetes, Python, PostgreSQL, Snowflake, Kafka

3. • Software Engineer with NVIDIA

   • Salary: $148K to $276K a year

   • Location: remote from the United States

   • Tech stack: Kubernetes, Shell, Python, Ansible, Puppet

4. • Solution Architect with NVIDIA

   • Salary: $148K to $235.75K a year

   • Location: based in the office (and remote from home) in Santa Clara, CA / NC / TX / CO / WA, USA

   • Tech stack: Kubernetes, Data center, Docker, C++, C

5. • Platform Engineer with Handshake

   • Salary: $180K to $220K a year

   • Location: remote from the United States

   • Tech stack: Kubernetes, AWS, GCP, ArgoCD, Java, Elastic Search, Terraform, Datadog, OTEL, Istio

Discover more Kubernetes jobs on Kube Careers →

Code & tools

1. kpatch: Live Kernel Patching

   dynup

   kpatch enables runtime kernel function patching by injecting precompiled replacement functions directly into the live kernel.

   It's built on the CONFIG_LIVEPATCH infrastructure and uses ftrace to reroute function calls at runtime.

2. Kubernetes Security Cheatsheet Diagram: A Visual Map of On-Prem Cluster Security Controls

   lars-solberg

   This diagram maps core Kubernetes security concepts—from RBAC, PodSecurity, and audit logging to container isolation—helping teams visualize enforcement points.

   Built by Telenor for on-prem clusters, it’s ideal for threat modelling or reviews.

3. Kubernetes-WithOut-Kubelet

   KWOK (Kubernetes-WithOut-Kubelet) is a toolkit that enables setting up a cluster of thousands of nodes in seconds.

   Under the scene, all Nodes are simulated to behave like real ones, so the overall approach employs a pretty low resource footprint.

4. kubernetes/git-sync

   git-sync is a simple command that pulls a git repository into a local directory.

   It is a perfect "sidecar" container in Kubernetes - it can periodically pull files down from a repository so that an application can consume them.

5. Talos Linux

   Talos is a modern Linux distribution for running Kubernetes: secure, immutable, and minimal.

   Talos is fully open-source & production-ready.

   All system management is done via an API - no shell or interactive console exists.

Other interesting projects:

• Cloudnativepg: PostgreSQL operator for Kubernetes

• Konditionner: conditions for CR

• Cyphernetes

• Deprecations AKA KubePug

• kube-fledged: creating and managing a cache of container images

• kubelinkr: port forwarder

• Velero notifications

• Capsule: multi-tenancy

Upcoming Kubernetes events

1. Jun

   26

   Advanced Kubernetes course

   Online workshop organized by Learnk8s.

   • This is a virtual event

   • This event requires an entrance fee

2. Jun

   24

   Cloud Native Days Italy 2025

   In-person conference organized by Cloud Native Days Italy.

   • Location: Bologna, IT

   • This event requires an entrance fee

   • • Use community-kube-event-earlybird to get a discounted ticket

3. Jun

   19

   Let the Algorithms Decide: Smart Kubernetes Resource Management

   Online webinar organized by Learnk8s.

   • This is a virtual event

   • This is a free event.

4. Jun

   18

   One year in production with CloudNativePG and ZFS on the cheapest Kubernetes cluster we could find

   Online meetup organized by Data on Kubernetes Community.

   • This is a virtual event

   • This is a free event.

5. Jun

   19

   Yoke an Adventure into Code-First Kubernetes Resource Management

   In-person meetup organized by Cloud Native Toronto.

   • Location: Toronerto, CA

   • This is a free event.

Discover more Kubernetes events on Kube Events →

Kubernetes Call for Papers

1. 5

   days

   Kubernetes Community Days Porto 2025

   The Call For Paper is open until 30 June 2025 at UTC. More info →

   • Location: Porto, PT

   • In-person conference organized by KCD Porto.

   • The conference starts on the 4 November 2025.

   • Apply here

2. 41

   days

   Kubernetes Community Days Sri Lanka 2025

   The Call For Paper is open until 4 August 2025 at UTC. More info →

   • Location: Colombo, LK

   • In-person conference organized by KCD Sri Lanka.

   • The conference starts on the 26 October 2025.

   • Apply here

3. 39

   days

   Texas Linux Festival 2025

   The Call For Paper is open until 3 August 2025 at UTC. More info →

   • Location: Austin, TX, USA

   • In-person conference organized by TXLF.

   • The conference starts on the 4 October 2025.

   • Apply here

4. 40

   days

   Open Source Summit Japan 2025

   The Call For Paper is open until 4 August 2025 at UTC. More info →

   • Location: Tokyo, JP

   • In-person conference organized by Linux Foundation.

   • The conference starts on the 10 December 2025.

   • Apply here

5. 3

   days

   Devopsdays Lima

   The Call For Paper is open until 28 June 2025 at UTC. More info →

   • Location: Lima, PE

   • In-person conference organized by Devopsdays.

   • The conference starts on the 20 August 2025.

   • Apply here

6. 53

   days

   Devopsdays Detroit

   The Call For Paper is open until 16 August 2025 at UTC. More info →

   • Location: Detroit, MI, USA

   • In-person conference organized by Devopsdays.

   • The conference starts on the 22 October 2025.

   • Apply here

7. expired

   Devopsdays Philadelphia

   The Call For Paper was open until 23 June 2025 at UTC. More info →

   • Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA

   • In-person conference organized by Devopsdays.

   • The conference starts on the 30 September 2025.

   • Apply here

8. 36

   days

   PWNEDCR 0x8

   The Call For Paper is open until 31 July 2025 at UTC. More info →

   • Location: San José, CR

   • In-person conference organized by DC11506.

   • The conference starts on the 19 October 2025.

   • Apply here

9. 83

   days

   Devopsdays Bogotá

   The Call For Paper is open until 16 September 2025 at UTC. More info →

   • Location: Bogotá, CO

   • In-person conference organized by Devopsdays.

   • The conference starts on the 14 October 2025.

   • Apply here

Until next time!

— Dan

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