Wondering how to assign Memory to Containers in Kubernetes? We can help you.

As part of our Server Management Services, we assist our customers with several Kubernetes queries.

Today, let us see how our Support Techs assign Memory to Containers.

 

Kubernetes: Assign Memory to Containers

A Container can have as much memory as it requests, but cannot use more memory than the limit.

Today, let us go through the procedure followed by our Support Techs to assign Memory to Containers in Kubernetes.

Create a namespace

Firstly, create a namespace so that the resources you create in this exercise will isolate from the rest of your cluster.

kubectl create namespace mem-example

 

Specify a memory request and a memory limit

In order to, specify a memory request for a Container, include the resources:requests field in the Container’s resource manifest.

To specify a memory limit, include resources:limits.

Here, you create a Pod that has one Container. The Container has a memory request of 100 MiB and a memory limit of 200 MiB.

Here’s the configuration file for the Pod:

pods/resource/memory-request-limit.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: memory-demo
namespace: mem-example
spec:
containers:
- name: memory-demo-ctr
image: polinux/stress
resources:
limits:
memory: "200Mi"
requests:
memory: "100Mi"
command: ["stress"]
args: ["--vm", "1", "--vm-bytes", "150M", "--vm-hang", "1"]

The args section in the configuration file provides arguments for the Container when it starts.

The “–vm-bytes”, “150M” arguments tell the Container to attempt to allocate 150 MiB of memory.

Then, create the Pod:

kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/pods/resource/memory-request-limit.yaml --namespace=mem-example

Verify that the Pod Container is running:

kubectl get pod memory-demo --namespace=mem-example

View detailed information about the Pod:

kubectl get pod memory-demo --output=yaml --namespace=mem-example

The output shows that the one Container in the Pod has a memory request of 100 MiB and a memory limit of 200 MiB.

...
resources:
limits:
memory: 200Mi
requests:
memory: 100Mi
...

Run kubectl top to fetch the metrics for the pod:

kubectl top pod memory-demo --namespace=mem-example

The output shows that the Pod is using about 162,900,000 bytes of memory, which is about 150 MiB.

This is greater than the Pod’s 100 MiB request, but within the Pod’s 200 MiB limit.

NAME CPU(cores) MEMORY(bytes)
memory-demo <something> 162856960

Then, delete your Pod:

kubectl delete pod memory-demo --namespace=mem-example

 

Exceed a Container’s memory limit

A Container can exceed its memory request if the Node has memory available.

If a Container allocates more memory than its limit, the Container becomes a candidate for termination.

In case the Container continues to consume memory beyond its limit, the Container is terminated.

If a terminated Container can be restarted, the kubelet restarts it, as with any other type of runtime failure.

In this exercise, you create a Pod that attempts to allocate more memory than its limit.

Here is the configuration file for a Pod that has one Container with a memory request of 50 MiB and a memory limit of 100 MiB:

pods/resource/memory-request-limit-2.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: memory-demo-2
namespace: mem-example
spec:
containers:
- name: memory-demo-2-ctr
image: polinux/stress
resources:
requests:
memory: "50Mi"
limits:
memory: "100Mi"
command: ["stress"]
args: ["--vm", "1", "--vm-bytes", "250M", "--vm-hang", "1"]

In the args section of the configuration file, you can see that the Container will attempt to allocate 250 MiB of memory, which is well above the 100 MiB limit.

Create the Pod:

kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/pods/resource/memory-request-limit-2.yaml --namespace=mem-example

View detailed information about the Pod:

kubectl get pod memory-demo-2 --namespace=mem-example

At this point, the Container might be running or killed. Repeat the preceding command until the Container is killed:

NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
memory-demo-2 0/1 OOMKilled 1 24s

Get a more detailed view of the Container status:

kubectl get pod memory-demo-2 --output=yaml --namespace=mem-example

The output shows that the Container was killed because it is out of memory (OOM):

lastState:
terminated:
containerID: docker://65183c1877aaec2e8427bc95609cc52677a454b56fcb24340dbd22917c23b10f
exitCode: 137
finishedAt: 2017-06-20T20:52:19Z
reason: OOMKilled
startedAt: null

The Container in this exercise can be restarted, so the kubelet restarts it.

Repeat the below command many times to see that the Container is repeatedly kill and restart:

kubectl get pod memory-demo-2 --namespace=mem-example

The output shows that the Container is killed, restarted, killed again, restarted again, and so on:

kubectl get pod memory-demo-2 --namespace=mem-example
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
memory-demo-2 0/1 OOMKilled 1 37s

kubectl get pod memory-demo-2 --namespace=mem-example
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
memory-demo-2 1/1 Running 2 40s

View detail information about the Pod history:

kubectl describe pod memory-demo-2 --namespace=mem-example

The output shows that the Container starts and fails repeatedly:

... Normal Created Created container with id 66a3a20aa7980e61be4922780bf9d24d1a1d8b7395c09861225b0eba1b1f8511
... Warning BackOff Back-off restarting failed container

View detailed information about your cluster’s Nodes:

kubectl describe nodes

The output includes a record of the Container being killed because of an out-of-memory condition:

Warning OOMKilling Memory cgroup out of memory: Kill process 4481 (stress) score 1994 or sacrifice child

Delete your Pod:

kubectl delete pod memory-demo-2 --namespace=mem-example

 

Specify a memory request that is too big for your Nodes

Memory requests and limits are associated with Containers, but it is useful to think of a Pod as having a memory request and limit.

The memory request for the Pod is the sum of the memory requests for all the Containers in the Pod.

Also, the memory limit for the Pod is the sum of the limits of all the Containers in the Pod.

Pod scheduling is based on requests.

A Pod is scheduled to run on a Node only if the Node has enough available memory to satisfy the Pod’s memory request.

Here, you create a Pod that has a memory request so big that it exceeds the capacity of any Node in your cluster.

Here is the configuration file for a Pod that has one Container with a request for 1000 GiB of memory, which likely exceeds the capacity of any Node in your cluster.

pods/resource/memory-request-limit-3.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: memory-demo-3
namespace: mem-example
spec:
containers:
- name: memory-demo-3-ctr
image: polinux/stress
resources:
limits:
memory: "1000Gi"
requests:
memory: "1000Gi"
command: ["stress"]
args: ["--vm", "1", "--vm-bytes", "150M", "--vm-hang", "1"]

Create the Pod:

kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/pods/resource/memory-request-limit-3.yaml --namespace=mem-example

View the Pod status:

kubectl get pod memory-demo-3 --namespace=mem-example

The output shows that the Pod status is PENDING. That is, the Pod is not schedule to run on any Node, and it will remain in the PENDING state indefinitely:

kubectl get pod memory-demo-3 --namespace=mem-example
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
memory-demo-3 0/1 Pending 0 25s

View detailed information about the Pod, including events:

kubectl describe pod memory-demo-3 --namespace=mem-example

The output shows that the Container cannot schedule because of insufficient memory on the Nodes:

Events:
... Reason Message
------ -------
... FailedScheduling No nodes are available that match all of the following predicates:: Insufficient memory (3).

 

Memory units

The memory resource is measure in bytes.

You can express memory as a plain integer or a fixed-point integer with one of these suffixes: E, P, T, G, M, K, Ei, Pi, Ti, Gi, Mi, Ki.

Delete your Pod:

kubectl delete pod memory-demo-3 --namespace=mem-example

 

If you do not specify a memory limit

If you do not specify a memory limit for a Container, one of the following situations applies:

• Firstly, the Container has no upper bound on the amount of memory it uses.

The Container could use all of the memory available on the Node where it is running which in turn could invoke the OOM Killer.

Further, in case of an OOM Kill, a container with no resource limits will have a greater chance of being killed.

• The Container is running in a namespace that has a default memory limit, and the Container is automatically assign the default limit.

Cluster administrators can use a LimitRange to specify a default value for the memory limit.

 

Motivation for memory requests and limits

By configuring memory requests and limits for the Containers that run in your cluster, you can make efficient use of the memory resources available on your cluster’s Nodes.

By keeping a Pod’s memory request low, you give the Pod a good chance of being scheduled.

Then, by having a memory limit that is greater than the memory request, you accomplish two things:

• The Pod can have bursts of activity where it makes use of memory that happens to be available.
• The amount of memory a Pod can use during a burst is limit to some reasonable amount.

 

Clean up

Delete your namespace. This deletes all the Pods that you created for this task:

kubectl delete namespace mem-example

 

[Need help to Troubleshoot Kubernetes errors? We can help you]

 

Conclusion

Today, we discussed about the procedure followed by our Support Techs to assign Memory to Containers.