Configuring CPU Management Policies on Kubernetes Nodes

--- title: Control CPU Management Policies on the Node reviewers: - sjenning - ConnorDoyle - balajismaniam content_type: task min-kubernetes-server-version: v1.26 weight: 140 ---  {{< feature-state for_k8s_version="v1.26" state="stable" >}} Kubernetes keeps many aspects of how pods execute on nodes abstracted from the user. This is by design. However, some workloads require stronger guarantees in terms of latency and/or performance in order to operate acceptably. The kubelet provides methods to enable more complex workload placement policies while keeping the abstraction free from explicit placement directives. For detailed information on resource management, please refer to the [Resource Management for Pods and Containers](/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers) documentation. For detailed information on how the kubelet implements resource management, please refer to the [Node ResourceManagers](/docs/concepts/policy/node-resource-managers) documentation. ## {{% heading "prerequisites" %}} {{< include "task-tutorial-prereqs.md" >}} {{< version-check >}} If you are running an older version of Kubernetes, please look at the documentation for the version you are actually running.  ## Configuring CPU management policies By default, the kubelet uses [CFS quota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Completely_Fair_Scheduler) to enforce pod CPU limits. When the node runs many CPU-bound pods, the workload can move to different CPU cores depending on whether the pod is throttled and which CPU cores are available at scheduling time. Many workloads are not sensitive to this migration and thus work fine without any intervention. However, in workloads where CPU cache affinity and scheduling latency significantly affect workload performance, the kubelet allows alternative CPU management policies to determine some placement preferences on the node. ## Windows Support {{< feature-state feature_gate_name="WindowsCPUAndMemoryAffinity" >}} CPU Manager support can be enabled on Windows by using the `WindowsCPUAndMemoryAffinity` feature gate and it requires support in the container runtime. Once the feature gate is enabled, follow the steps below to configure the [CPU manager policy](#configuration). ## Configuration The CPU Manager policy is set with the `--cpu-manager-policy` kubelet flag or the `cpuManagerPolicy` field in [KubeletConfiguration](/docs/reference/config-api/kubelet-config.v1beta1/). There are two supported policies: * [`none`](#none-policy): the default policy. * [`static`](#static-policy): allows pods with certain resource characteristics to be granted increased CPU affinity and exclusivity on the node. The CPU manager periodically writes resource updates through the CRI in order to reconcile in-memory CPU assignments with cgroupfs. The reconcile frequency is set through a new Kubelet configuration value `--cpu-manager-reconcile-period`. If not specified, it defaults to the same duration as `--node-status-update-frequency`. The behavior of the static policy can be fine-tuned using the `--cpu-manager-policy-options` flag. The flag takes a comma-separated list of `key=value` policy options. If you disable the `CPUManagerPolicyOptions` [feature gate](/docs/reference/command-line-tools-reference/feature-gates/) then you cannot fine-tune CPU manager policies. In that case, the CPU manager operates only using its default settings. In addition to the top-level `CPUManagerPolicyOptions` feature gate, the policy options are split into two groups: alpha quality (hidden by default) and beta quality (visible by default). The groups are guarded respectively by the `CPUManagerPolicyAlphaOptions` and `CPUManagerPolicyBetaOptions` feature gates. Diverging from the Kubernetes standard, these feature gates guard groups of options, because it would have been too cumbersome to add a feature gate for each individual option. ## Changing the CPU Manager Policy Since the CPU manager policy can only be applied when kubelet spawns new pods, simply changing from

This document outlines how to configure CPU management policies in Kubernetes using the kubelet. It details the prerequisites, configuration steps, and available policies (none and static) for managing CPU affinity and exclusivity for pods. It also covers Windows support and changing CPU Manager policies.