Using Node taints and tolerations

Using the Node and inter-Pod affinity mechanism for scheduling Pods is very powerful, but sometimes you need a simpler way of specifying which Nodes should repel Pods. Kubernetes offers a slightly older and simpler feature for this purpose – taints and tolerations. You apply a taint to a given Node (which describes some kind of limitation) and the Pod must have a specific toleration defined to be schedulable on the tainted Node. If the Pod has a toleration, it does not mean that the taint is required on the Node. The real-life definition of taint is "a trace of a bad or undesirable substance or quality," and this reflects the idea pretty well – all Pods will avoid a Node if there is a taint set for them, but we can instruct Pods to tolerate a specific taint.

Tip

If you look closely at how taints and tolerations are described, you can see that you can achieve similar results with Node labels and Node hard and soft affinity...