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Patching Live Kubernetes Deployments and Draining a Node for Maintenance

This lab guides the student through the creation of a cluster using kops. Once created, the cluster is used to deploy four replicas of the NGINX web server. Then the kubectl patch command is used to update the version of NGINX running in the pod containers. The last exercise is to drain a node for maintenance.

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Path Info

Level
Clock icon Intermediate
Duration
Clock icon 2h 0m
Last updated
Clock icon Aug 10, 2025

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Table of Contents

  1. Challenge

    Create the Cluster

    1. Create the cluster configuration using the script provided.
    2. Update the cluster using kops.
    3. Validate the cluster.

  2. Challenge

    Deploy the NGINX Replicas

    1. Deploy four replicas of the NGINX web server, version 1.7.9 from the GitHub repo.
    2. View the Pods running.
    3. View the version of the container within the Pod.

  3. Challenge

    Patch the Live Containers

    1. Download the NGINX 1.9.1 Pod spec with the wget command from the GitHub repo.
    2. Patch the live containers running in the nginx-deployment with version 1.9.1.
    3. Interrogate the status of the deployment.
    4. Check the Pods.

  4. Challenge

    Drain a Worker Node for Maintenance

    1. See which pods are running on which nodes.
    2. Select a node to drain and drain it.
    3. Examine the status of the deployment replicas.
    4. Reattach the node.
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