Pod-to-Pod communication in Kubernetes - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Pod-to-Pod communication

📖 Scenario: You are working with Kubernetes to deploy two simple pods that need to talk to each other inside the same cluster. This is like two friends in the same room passing notes directly without using the internet.

🎯 Goal: You will create two pods with specific names, configure a service to allow them to communicate, and verify that one pod can reach the other by using the service name.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create two pods named pod-a and pod-b running the busybox image

Create a service named pod-b-service that targets pod-b

Use kubectl exec to ping pod-b-service from pod-a to test communication

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Pod-to-pod communication is essential for microservices running inside Kubernetes clusters to work together and share data.

💼 Career

Understanding how to configure pods and services for communication is a fundamental skill for Kubernetes administrators and DevOps engineers.

1

Create two pods named pod-a and pod-b

Create two pods named pod-a and pod-b using the busybox image. Each pod should run a simple command to sleep for 3600 seconds to keep them alive.

Kubernetes

# Create pod-a and pod-b with busybox image and sleep command
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use two separate pod definitions separated by ---. Each pod uses the busybox image and runs sleep 3600.

2

Create a service named pod-b-service targeting pod-b

Create a ClusterIP service named pod-b-service that selects the pod with the label app: pod-b. Add the label app: pod-b to the pod-b pod metadata.

Kubernetes

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: pod-a
spec:
  containers:
  - name: busybox
    image: busybox
    command: ["sleep", "3600"]
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: pod-b
  # Add label app: pod-b here
spec:
  containers:
  - name: busybox
    image: busybox
    command: ["sleep", "3600"]

# Create a ClusterIP service named pod-b-service selecting app: pod-b
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Remember to add the label app: pod-b to the pod-b metadata and create a service with selector matching that label.

3

Test pod-a can ping pod-b-service

Use kubectl exec to run the command ping -c 3 pod-b-service inside the pod-a pod to test connectivity.

Kubernetes

kubectl exec pod-a -- ping -c 3 pod-b-service
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use kubectl exec pod-a -- ping -c 3 pod-b-service to check if pod-a can reach pod-b via the service.

4

Display the ping command output

Run the command kubectl exec pod-a -- ping -c 3 pod-b-service and display the output to confirm pod-to-pod communication.

Kubernetes

# Run the ping command and show output
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The ping output should show successful packets sent and received with 0% packet loss.