Understanding Kubernetes: Part 35 Readiness Probe

📢 If you’ve been following our Kubernetes series 2025, welcome back! For new readers, check out Part 34 Liveness Probe

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What is a Readiness Probe in Kubernetes?

A Readiness Probe in Kubernetes is a diagnostic tool used to determine if a pod is ready to serve traffic. Unlike the Liveness Probe, which checks if a pod is still running, the readiness probe checks whether the pod is ready to accept requests. If the readiness probe fails, the pod is considered not ready, and Kubernetes will stop sending traffic to it. However, the pod will not be restarted (unlike in the case of a liveness probe failure).

For example:

Consider a web application pod that takes some time to initialize after being started (e.g., loading configurations, establishing database connections, etc.). You don’t want Kubernetes to send traffic to the pod until it is fully initialized. In such a scenario, you can use a readiness probe to ensure the pod only starts receiving traffic once it’s ready to handle requests.

Readiness Probe Capabilities:

• Types of Checks: Like the liveness probe, readiness probes can…