IBM Cloud Docs
Default service settings for Kubernetes components

Default service settings for Kubernetes components

Review the default settings for Kubernetes components, such as the kube-apiserver, kubelet, kube-scheduler, or kube-proxy that IBM Cloud® Kubernetes Service sets when you create your cluster.

kube-apiserver

Review the default settings for the kube-apiserver master component in IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.

Default pod tolerations

default-not-ready-toleration-seconds=600s

default-unreachable-toleration-seconds=600s

Privileged pods

allow-privileged=true

Request and response headers

strict-transport-security-directives="max-age=31536000" (Kubernetes version 1.28 and later)

requestheader-client-ca-file=/mnt/etc/kubernetes-cert/ca.pem

requestheader-username-headers=X-Remote-User

requestheader-group-headers=X-Remote-Group

requestheader-extra-headers-prefix=X-Remote-Extra-

Number of client requests

max-requests-inflight=1600

max-mutating-requests-inflight=800

Admission controllers

ClusterTrustBundleAttest (Kubernetes version 1.27 and later)

ValidatingAdmissionPolicy (Kubernetes version 1.27 and later)

DefaultStorageClass

NamespaceLifecycle

LimitRanger

ServiceAccount

MutatingAdmissionWebhook

ValidatingAdmissionWebhook

ResourceQuota

DefaultTolerationSeconds

StorageObjectInUseProtection

PersistentVolumeClaimResize

Priority

PodSecurity (Optional in Kubernetes version 1.24, enabled in version 1.25 and later)

PodSecurityPolicy (Kubernetes version 1.24 and earlier)

NodeRestriction

TaintNodesByCondition

CertificateApproval

CertificateSigning

  • CertificateSubjectRestriction
  • DefaultIngressClass
  • RuntimeClass
  • DenyServiceExternalIPs
Feature gates

See Feature gates

TLS cipher support

TLS version 1.2:

  • TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
  • TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
  • TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256

TLS version 1.3:

  • TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
  • TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
  • TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

kube-controller-manager

Review the default settings for the kube-controller-manager master component in IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.

Feature gates

See Feature gates

Pod garbage collection threshold

terminated-pod-gc-threshold=12500

TLS cipher support

TLS version 1.2:

  • TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
  • TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
  • TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256

TLS version 1.3:

  • TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
  • TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
  • TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

kubelet

Review the default settings for the kubelet worker node component in IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.

imageGCHighThresholdPercent: 75 (Kubernetes version 1.26 and later)

imageGCLowThresholdPercent: 65 (Kubernetes version 1.26 and later)

kubeAPIQPS: 50 (Kubernetes version 1.27 and later)

kubeAPIBurst: 100 (Kubernetes version 1.27 and later)

eventBurst: 100 (Kubernetes version 1.27 and later)

eventRecordQPS: 50 (Kubernetes version 1.27 and later)

serializeImagePulls: false

registryPullQPS: 5

registryBurst: 5

cgroups
kubeletCgroups: /podruntime/kubelet
runtime-cgroups=/podruntime/runtime
Container logs
containerLogMaxSize: 100Mi
containerLogMaxFiles: 3
Container runtime endpoint
containerRuntimeEndpoint: "unix:///run/containerd/containerd.sock"
CPU CFS quota
cpuCFSQuotaPeriod: 20ms
Feature gates
See Feature gates.
File check frequency
fileCheckFrequency: 5s
Graceful Node Shutdown
shutdownGracePeriodCriticalPods: 15s
Kubernetes and system reserves
kubeReserved calculated based on worker node flavor
systemReserved calculated based on worker node flavor

Pod eviction

evictionSoft:
  memory.available:  "100Mi"
  nodefs.available: "10%"
  imagefs.available: "10%"
  nodefs.inodesFree: "10%"
  imagefs.inodesFree: "10%"
evictionSoftGracePeriod:
  memory.available: "10m"
  nodefs.available: "10m"
  imagefs.available: "10m"
  nodefs.inodesFree: "10m"
  imagefs.inodesFree: "10m"
evictionHard:
  memory.available: "100Mi"
  nodefs.available: "5%"
  imagefs.available: "5%"
  nodefs.inodesFree: "5%"
  imagefs.inodesFree: "5%"
Pod manifest path

staticPodPath: /etc/kubernetes/manifests

TLS cipher support

TLS version 1.2:

  • TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
  • TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
  • TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256

TLS version 1.3:

  • TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
  • TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
  • TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

kube-scheduler

Review the default settings for the kube-scheduler worker node component in IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.

TLS cipher support

TLS version 1.2:

  • TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
  • TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
  • TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256

TLS version 1.3:

  • TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
  • TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
  • TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

kube-proxy

Review the default settings for the kube-proxy worker node component in IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.

Iptable settings
iptables-sync-period 120 (Kubernetes version 1.29 and later)
iptables-min-sync-period 2s (Kubernetes version 1.29 and later)
iptables-sync-period 180s (Kubernetes version 1.28)
iptables-min-sync-period 3s (Kubernetes version 1.28)
iptables-sync-period 300s (Kubernetes version 1.27 and earlier)
iptables-min-sync-period 5s (Kubernetes version 1.27 and earlier)
iptables-localhost-nodeports false (Kubernetes versions 1.26 and later)
Proxy mode
proxy-mode=iptables
Feature gates
See Feature gates

Feature gates

Review the feature gates that are applied to all master and worker node components by default in IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service clusters. These feature gates differ from the ones that are set up in community distributions. In clusters that run version 1.23 or earlier, the IBM Cloud provider version enables Kubernetes APIs and features that are at beta. In version 1.24 and later, most new beta features are disabled by default. Kubernetes alpha features, which are subject to change, are disabled in all versions.

In cluster version 1.26 and later, you can use the kubectl get --raw /metrics | grep kubernetes_feature_enabled command to determine if a feature gate is enabled or disabled.

1.29
CustomCPUCFSQuotaPeriod=true
KMSv1=true
StructuredAuthenticationConfiguration=true
1.28
CustomCPUCFSQuotaPeriod=true
UnauthenticatedHTTP2DOSMitigation=true
1.27
CustomCPUCFSQuotaPeriod=true
UnauthenticatedHTTP2DOSMitigation=true
1.26
CustomCPUCFSQuotaPeriod=true
UnauthenticatedHTTP2DOSMitigation=true
1.25
CustomCPUCFSQuotaPeriod=true
UnauthenticatedHTTP2DOSMitigation=true
1.24
CustomCPUCFSQuotaPeriod=true
LegacyServiceAccountTokenNoAutoGeneration=false
PodSecurity=false
1.23
CustomCPUCFSQuotaPeriod=true
ServiceLBNodePortControl=false
PodSecurity=false
1.22
ServiceLBNodePortControl=false
CustomCPUCFSQuotaPeriod=true
IPv6DualStack=false
1.21
ServiceLoadBalancerClass=true
CustomCPUCFSQuotaPeriod=true
IPv6DualStack=false
1.20
AllowInsecureBackendProxy=false
CustomCPUCFSQuotaPeriod=true
1.19
RuntimeClass=false
CustomCPUCFSQuotaPeriod=true
AllowInsecureBackendProxy=false
SCTPSupport=false
ServiceAppProtocol=false
1.18
RuntimeClass=false
CustomCPUCFSQuotaPeriod=true
AllowInsecureBackendProxy=false