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Scenario #6
Cluster Management
K8s v1.22, EKS

Kubelet DiskPressure Loop on Large Image Pulls

Continuous pod evictions caused by DiskPressure due to image bloating.

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What Happened

A new container image with many layers was deployed. Node’s disk filled up, triggering kubelet’s DiskPressure condition. Evicted pods created a loop.

Diagnosis Steps
  • 1Checked node conditions: kubectl describe node showed DiskPressure: True.
  • 2Monitored image cache with crictl images.
  • 3Node /var/lib/containerd usage exceeded threshold.
Root Cause

Excessive layering in container image and high pull churn caused disk exhaustion.

Fix/Workaround
• Rebuilt image using multistage builds and removed unused layers.
• Increased ephemeral disk space temporarily.
Lessons Learned

Container image size directly affects node stability.

How to Avoid
  • 1Set resource requests/limits appropriately.
  • 2Use image scanning to reject bloated images.