A worker node in Kubernetes is a machine (virtual or physical) where application workloads (Pods) actually run.
It contains all the necessary components to run, manage, and communicate the containers scheduled to it by the control plane.
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| kubelet | Agent that runs on each node; communicates with kube-apiserver and ensures containers are running as expected |
| kube-proxy | Maintains network rules on the node; enables service discovery and routing to the correct Pod IPs |
| Container Runtime | The software that actually runs containers (e.g., containerd, CRI-O, Docker) |
✅ Worker nodes are where your applications live — each node follows orders from the control plane to run and manage Pods.