Pods: The Smallest Unit

Beginner

Overview

A Pod is the smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes. It wraps one (or a few tightly-coupled) containers that share storage and a network address.

You rarely create bare Pods directly in production — controllers like Deployments manage them for you — but understanding Pods is the foundation for everything else.

kubectl get pods lists them; kubectl describe pod gives detailed events; kubectl logs streams a container's output.

Cheatsheet

kubectl get podsList pods in the current namespace
kubectl get pods -AList pods in all namespaces
kubectl describe pod <name>Detailed status and events
kubectl logs <pod>View a pod's logs
kubectl exec -it <pod> -- shOpen a shell inside a pod

Try it

A safe, simulated terminal. Run the suggested commands to see typical output.

simulated terminal

Type a command and press Enter, or click a suggestion below to run it.

$

Quick quiz

1. What is the smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes?

2. Which command shows a pod's logs?