Which Kubernetes component is part of node infrastructure rather than the control plane?

Which Kubernetes component is part of node infrastructure rather than the control plane?

• A. Kube-proxy
• B. Kube-apiserver
• C. Etcd
• D. Kube-scheduler

Answer: (A)

The concept being tested is where different Kubernetes components run and how they handle cluster networking. Kube-proxy runs on every node, making it part of the node infrastructure. It acts as the local network proxy and load balancer for services, watching the API for Service and Endpoints objects and configuring the node’s networking rules (iptables or IPVS) so that traffic to a service’s cluster IP is directed to one of the pods backing that service. This per-node role is what ties it to the node infrastructure. In contrast, the control plane components—kube-apiserver, etcd, and kube-scheduler—reside on master/control-plane nodes and manage the overall cluster state, API requests, and scheduling decisions. They don’t perform per-node service routing. So the component that best fits as part of node infrastructure is kube-proxy.

The concept being tested is where different Kubernetes components run and how they handle cluster networking. Kube-proxy runs on every node, making it part of the node infrastructure. It acts as the local network proxy and load balancer for services, watching the API for Service and Endpoints objects and configuring the node’s networking rules (iptables or IPVS) so that traffic to a service’s cluster IP is directed to one of the pods backing that service. This per-node role is what ties it to the node infrastructure.

In contrast, the control plane components—kube-apiserver, etcd, and kube-scheduler—reside on master/control-plane nodes and manage the overall cluster state, API requests, and scheduling decisions. They don’t perform per-node service routing. So the component that best fits as part of node infrastructure is kube-proxy.