Explain the Pod lifecycle and its phases.

Intermediate

Answer

Pod lifecycle phases:

  1. Pending: Pod accepted by cluster but containers not yet created
  2. Running: Pod bound to node, all containers created, at least one running
  3. Succeeded: All containers terminated successfully
  4. Failed: All containers terminated, at least one failed
  5. Unknown: Pod state cannot be determined
    Additional states include init containers, readiness/liveness probes, and termination grace periods. Understanding this is crucial for troubleshooting deployment issues.