Simple Label has such a great effect

Posted by nextman on Sat, 12 Feb 2022 02:07:48 +0100

  • Label: classify and group various resources in k8s, and add a label with special attributes

  • Selector: find the resource corresponding to the tag through a filtered syntax

Label is an important concept in k8s. A key value pair of a label with key=value can be attached to various resources.

After the summary, we will explain:

Matching rules for Label:

  • name=nginx: this type is direct matching
  • name!= Nginx: there is no resource with name=nginx in the matching tag
  • name in (A,B): matches all resources with name=A and name=B tags
  • name not in (A): matches all resources without label A


As can be seen from the above figure, frontend is matched to the backend server through the service. When the tag of the service is app=nginx, it will be matched to the two groups of backend servers. However, when role = backend app is added to the filter in the service, the Selector will only filter the servers containing these two tags in the backend server group and then match them.

You can see the label of Pod through the following command: through the – show labels parameter
The last column LABELS is the label of Pod

[root@k8s-master01 ~]# kubectl get pod --show-labels 
NAME                        READY   STATUS    RESTARTS       AGE   LABELS
busybox                     1/1     Running   28 (16h ago)   9d    <none>
hpa-nginx-bd88bdd8f-h8vx7   1/1     Running   0              18h   app=hpa-nginx,pod-template-hash=bd88bdd8f

Then we can try to tag the Pod with kubectl: from the above code, we can see that busybox has no label. Through the following command, we can find that there is already a label app=busybox.

[root@k8s-master01 ~]# kubectl label pod busybox app=busybox
pod/busybox labeled
[root@k8s-master01 ~]# kubectl get pod --show-labels 
NAME                        READY   STATUS    RESTARTS       AGE   LABELS
busybox                     1/1     Running   28 (16h ago)   9d    app=busybox
hpa-nginx-bd88bdd8f-h8vx7   1/1     Running   0              18h   app=hpa-nginx,pod-template-hash=bd88bdd8f

If there are A lot of pods in A cluster, we can find the desired Pod by tag filtering- Parameter A is to view all pods, but after adding - l app=busybox, only pods that meet this condition will be found.

[root@k8s-master01 ~]# kubectl get pod -A -l app=busybox
NAMESPACE   NAME      READY   STATUS    RESTARTS       AGE
default     busybox   1/1     Running   28 (16h ago)   9d

So the question is, what if we don't want this label or need to modify it?

  • Delete label:
[root@k8s-master01 ~]# kubectl label pod busybox app-
pod/busybox unlabeled
[root@k8s-master01 ~]# kubectl get pod --show-labels 
NAME                        READY   STATUS    RESTARTS       AGE   LABELS
busybox                     1/1     Running   28 (16h ago)   9d    <none>
hpa-nginx-bd88bdd8f-h8vx7   1/1     Running   0              18h   app=hpa-nginx,pod-template-hash=bd88bdd8f
  • Modify label: you can see that the label has been modified.
[root@k8s-master01 ~]# kubectl get pod --show-labels 
NAME                        READY   STATUS    RESTARTS       AGE   LABELS
busybox                     1/1     Running   28 (16h ago)   9d    app=busybox
hpa-nginx-bd88bdd8f-h8vx7   1/1     Running   0              18h   app=hpa-nginx,pod-template-hash=bd88bdd8f
[root@k8s-master01 ~]# kubectl label pod busybox app=busybox22222 --overwrite 
pod/busybox labeled
[root@k8s-master01 ~]# kubectl get pod --show-labels 
NAME                        READY   STATUS    RESTARTS       AGE   LABELS
busybox                     1/1     Running   28 (16h ago)   9d    app=busybox22222
hpa-nginx-bd88bdd8f-h8vx7   1/1     Running   0              18h   app=hpa-nginx,pod-template-hash=bd88bdd8f

Labels is a very simple thing. Next, let's see how the Selector is used

What should I do if I want to filter out a pod with multiple conditions?

[root@k8s-master01 ~]# kubectl get pod -A --show-labels 
NAMESPACE              NAME                                         READY   STATUS    RESTARTS         AGE   LABELS
default                busybox                                      1/1     Running   29 (3m19s ago)   9d    app=busybox22222
default                hpa-nginx-bd88bdd8f-h8vx7                    1/1     Running   0                18h   app=hpa-nginx,pod-template-hash=bd88bdd8f
kube-system            calico-kube-controllers-5dffd5886b-4blh6     1/1     Running   2 (2d1h ago)     9d    k8s-app=calico-kube-controllers,pod-template-hash=5dffd5886b
kube-system            calico-node-fvbdq                            1/1     Running   2 (2d1h ago)     9d    controller-revision-hash=79878cdc56,k8s-app=calico-node,pod-template-generation=1
kube-system            calico-node-g8nqd                            1/1     Running   0                9d    controller-revision-hash=79878cdc56,k8s-app=calico-node,pod-template-generation=1
kube-system            calico-node-mdps8                            1/1     Running   0                9d    controller-revision-hash=79878cdc56,k8s-app=calico-node,pod-template-generation=1
kube-system            calico-node-nf4nt                            1/1     Running   1 (4d1h ago)     9d    controller-revision-hash=79878cdc56,k8s-app=calico-node,pod-template-generation=1
kube-system            calico-node-sq2ml                            1/1     Running   1 (2d1h ago)     9d    controller-revision-hash=79878cdc56,k8s-app=calico-node,pod-template-generation=1
kube-system            calico-typha-8445487f56-mg6p8                1/1     Running   0                9d    k8s-app=calico-typha,pod-template-hash=8445487f56
kube-system            calico-typha-8445487f56-pxbpj                1/1     Running   1 (2d1h ago)     9d    k8s-app=calico-typha,pod-template-hash=8445487f56
kube-system            calico-typha-8445487f56-tnssl                1/1     Running   0                9d    k8s-app=calico-typha,pod-template-hash=8445487f56
kube-system            coredns-5db5696c7-67h79                      1/1     Running   1 (2d1h ago)     9d    k8s-app=kube-dns,pod-template-hash=5db5696c7
kube-system            metrics-server-6bf7dcd649-5fhrw              1/1     Running   2 (4d1h ago)     9d    k8s-app=metrics-server,pod-template-hash=6bf7dcd649
kubernetes-dashboard   dashboard-metrics-scraper-7fcdff5f4c-9kk86   1/1     Running   1 (2d1h ago)     9d    k8s-app=dashboard-metrics-scraper,pod-template-hash=7fcdff5f4c
kubernetes-dashboard   kubernetes-dashboard-85f59f8ff7-js9j2        1/1     Running   12 (2d1h ago)    9d    k8s-app=kubernetes-dashboard,pod-template-hash=85f59f8ff7

The above is all our pods. I want to find the container containing kubernetes dashboard and Kube DNS in the tag:

[root@k8s-master01 ~]# kubectl get pod -A -l 'k8s-app in (kubernetes-dashboard,kube-dns)'
NAMESPACE              NAME                                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS        AGE
kube-system            coredns-5db5696c7-67h79                 1/1     Running   1 (2d1h ago)    9d
kubernetes-dashboard   kubernetes-dashboard-85f59f8ff7-js9j2   1/1     Running   12 (2d1h ago)   9d

After finding these two pods, it indicates that these two pods contain these two labels. You can check whether these two pods contain these two labels in the above list of all containers.

There is also a case. For example, I have a batch of Pod labels, which are as follows:

I want to view all pods that do not contain ABB=X, which can be written as follows:

kubectl get po -l ABB!=X,APC=A

In this case, only Pod02 and Pod03 will be found.

Conclusion: this function is not difficult, but it is important and commonly used. You must know.

Topics: Linux Operation & Maintenance Kubernetes Container