Failed Node Drain Due to In-Use Pods

A node failed to drain due to pods that were in use, preventing the drain operation from completing.

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What Happened

When attempting to drain a node, the operation failed because some pods were still in use or had pending termination grace periods.

Diagnosis Steps

1Ran kubectl describe node and checked pod evictions.
2Identified pods that were in the middle of long-running processes or had insufficient termination grace periods.

Root Cause

Pods with long-running tasks or improper termination grace periods caused the drain to hang.

Fix/Workaround

• Increased termination grace periods for the affected pods.
• Forced the node drain operation after ensuring that the pods could safely terminate.

Lessons Learned

Ensure that pods with long-running tasks have adequate termination grace periods.

How to Avoid