What is Label?
Key-value metadata attached to Kubernetes objects for identification and selection.
Labels are key-value pairs attached to Kubernetes objects (Pods, Nodes, Services). They are used to identify and select groups of objects. Services use label selectors to find the pods they should route traffic to. HPA uses label selectors to find the pods it scales. Node selectors use node labels for pod placement. Labels are indexed for efficient lookups. Annotations are similar but for non-identifying metadata (tool configs, descriptions).
Related Terms
More Kubernetes Terms
Admission Controller
A Kubernetes plugin that intercepts API requests before objects are persisted.
Auto Scaling
Automatically adjusting the number of compute resources based on demand.
ClusterIP
The default Kubernetes Service type that exposes a service on an internal cluster IP.
ConfigMap
A Kubernetes object for storing non-sensitive configuration data as key-value pairs.
Controller Manager
Kubernetes control plane component running control loops to maintain desired state.
CoreDNS
The default DNS server in Kubernetes clusters for service discovery.
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