What is application lifecycle management?

Many programming languages frameworks implement the concept of lifecycle management. The term refers to how the platform can interact with the component it creates right after it starts or before it stops.

This implementation is important because sometimes we may need to perform some actions on the Pod such as testing for connectivity to one or more of its dependencies. Similarly, the Pod may need to undergo cleanup activities before the Pod is destroyed.

In the application process management pattern, we ensure that our containerized application is aware of its environment and correctly responds to the different signals that the platform (Kubernetes) sends to it.

How Kubernetes terminates its Pods

Through its lifecycle, a container may get terminated. Perhaps because the Pod it belongs to is being shut down or failing one or both of the liveness or readiness probes. In all cases, Kubernetes follows a standard way of destroying a running container: by sending kill signals. In the end, a container is just a process running on the machine.

First, Kubernetes sends the SIGTERM signal. The SIGTERM signal is sent by default when you issue the kill command against a process running on your Linux system.

SIGTERM allows the running process to perform any required cleanup activities before shutdown such as releasing file locks, closing database and network connections, and so on.

Even so, sometimes the process (the container in our case) does not respond to the SIGTERM signal. Either because of a code bug that put the process in an infinite loop or for other reasons.

Because of this, Kubernetes waits for a grace period of thirty seconds (which is an overridable metric) before it sends the more aggressive signal SIGKILL.

SIGKILL is the same signal sent to a running process when you issue the popular kill -9 command and hand it the process id. The process does not receive a SIGKILL signal but by the underlying operating system.

Once the kernel detects this signal, it stops provisioning any resources to the process in question. The kernel also stops any CPU threads currently in use by the dangling process. In other words, it cuts the power off the process, forcing it to die.

Communicating with containers when they start and before they terminate

So far, Kubernetes treats containers the same way any Linux system administrator deals with the running process: sending signals to the process or the kernel. But, because containers are part of larger applications with complex functions and tasks, signals are not enough. For that reason, Kubernetes offers postStart and preStop hooks.

Executing commands when the container starts with the postStart hook

You can think of a hook as a placeholder for executing code at a specific stage. You may or may not use the hook depending on your needs. The postStart hook is a placeholder for any logic that you need to execute as soon as the container starts. Example use cases are many:

• If the container is a client to an external API, you have to make sure that the API is up and running and capable of responding to requests before your container comes to service.
• When the container needs to execute some activities before the primary process launches such as resetting users’ passwords or logging events to a log or database.
• When there is a need to fulfil a specific condition before the container comes into service, for example, you may probe an external API for several seconds; if the check fails after that number of seconds passes, the prober returns a non-zero exit code. When the non-zero exit code is returned, Kubernetes automatically kills the container’s main process.

Let’s have a quick example: the following definition file will start a Pod hosting one container. The container needs to ensure that a dependency service is available. Otherwise, the whole container should get killed:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
 name: client
spec:
 containers:
   - image: nginx
     name: client
     lifecycle:
       postStart:
         exec:
           command:
             - sh
             - -c
             - sleep 10 && exit 1

When you apply the above definition to the cluster using kubectl apply -f poststart.yml and have a look at the Pods status using kubectl get pods, you will find out that the client pod is always in the ContainerCreating status:

$ kubectl get pods                                                                                                                                                                  
NAME    READY STATUS       RESTARTS AGE
client 0/1    ContainerCreating 0    6s
$ kubectl get pods                                                                                 
NAME    READY STATUS       RESTARTS AGE
client 0/1    ContainerCreating 0    9s
$ kubectl get pods                                                                                 
NAME    READY STATUS       RESTARTS AGE
client 0/1    ContainerCreating 0    11s
$ kubectl get pods                                                                                 
NAME    READY STATUS       RESTARTS AGE
client 0/1    ContainerCreating 0    14s
$ kubectl get pods                                                                                 
NAME    READY STATUS       RESTARTS AGE
client 0/1    ContainerCreating 0    19s
$ kubectl get pods                                                                                 
NAME    READY STATUS       RESTARTS AGE
client 0/1    ContainerCreating 0    22s
$ kubectl get pods                                                                                 
NAME    READY STATUS       RESTARTS AGE
client 0/1    ContainerCreating 0    27s
$ kubectl get pods                                                                                 
NAME    READY STATUS       RESTARTS AGE
client 0/1    ContainerCreating 0    29s
$ kubectl get pods                                                                                 
NAME    READY STATUS       RESTARTS AGE
client 0/1    ContainerCreating 0    43s

This is what happened in sequence:

1. Kubernetes pulled the nginx image
2. It created the container and prepared to start it
3. Because we have a lifecycle stanza within the definition, Kubernetes executes the postStart hook and scheduled bringing the container up till the hook script is finished.
4. The postStart script pauses the thread for ten seconds before it returns a non-zero exit status.
5. When Kubernetes detects the non-zero exit status, it kills and restarts the container again, and the whole cycle repeats indefinitely.

We can make nginx start after ten seconds (which simulates any precheck activities) by altering the postStart script so that the definition looks as follows:

aapiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: client
spec:
containers:
 - image: nginx
  name: client
  lifecycle:
   postStart:
    exec:
     command:
      - sh
      - -c
      - sleep 10

Now, let’s apply this new configuration:

$ kubectl apply -f poststart.yml                                                                          
pod/client created
$ kubectl get pods                                                                                 
NAME    READY STATUS       RESTARTS AGE
client 0/1    ContainerCreating 0    4s
$ kubectl get pods                                                                                 
NAME    READY STATUS    RESTARTS AGE
client 1/1    Running    0      22s

As you can see from the above, Kubernetes executed the postStart script then started the container’s main ENTRYPOINT, which is the nginx daemon.

postStart script methods

postStart script uses the following methods for running the checks:

• exec: Used in the preceding example, the exec method executes one or more arbitrary commands against the container. The exit status specifies whether or not the check has passed.
• httpGet: Opens an HTTP connection to a local port on the container. You can optionally supply a path. For example, if we can modify the preceding example to check whether or not port 8080 is open (let’s say a hypothetical REST service) and the /status endpoint path returns a valid success response:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: client
spec:
containers:
 - image: mynginx
  name: client
  lifecycle:
   postStart:
    httpGet:
    port: 8080
    path: /status

Why not use an init container instead?

Good question! init container is a Kubernetes feature that allows a container to start and do one or more tasks, then it gets terminated. The init container starts and stops before other containers do, making it the right candidate for performing any pre-launch tasks.

However, while postStart hooks and init containers appear to do similar jobs, the implementation is mostly different. Let’s have a quick comparison between both methods and demonstrate possible use cases for each:

• postStart scripts are executed using the same image as of the main container. Init containers can use the same or a different image than the one used by subsequent containers. So, if the tasks that you need to perform require a different base image, then you’d better use init containers.
• postStart scripts are executed inside the same container. So, if the script you need to run is tightly coupled with the container, for example, you need to make configuration changes to the container itself, you should use postStart scripts.
• All init containers must finish before the primary containers start. On the other hand, postStart scripts are specific to each container. So, container A uses its postStart scripts and launches, container B executes its postStart scripts and starts and so on. So, if you are hosting more than one container on the same Pod and you need to run one or more container-agnostic tasks, you should use init containers. However, if each init script is specific to its container, then a postStart hook is the suitable choice.
• Init containers start and stop before any other container starts. postStart scripts get executed in parallel with their containers. This means that the script may or may not run before the ENTRYPOINT of the container kicks in. If you need to be confident that the pre-launch logic is always executed before the main container does, then use init containers.
• Because of how they are designed, postStart scripts may run many times. The application logic should be able to deal with this numerous execution possibility. For example, if the postStart script adds a new temporary user account before the container runs, then it should first check whether the user has already been created so that it does not return an incorrect non-zero exit status.

But I could do the same thing using the container itself

Yes, any logic implemented through the postStart script can be applied by adding it as part of the ENTRYPOINT command that gets passed to the container to start. But this is not a good decision from a design perspective.

It tightly couples the container with its pre-launch logic in a way that requires each container to be individually modified. Using hooks allows you to change containers while keeping the same pre-launch logic in place. It also allows you to work on the pre-launch logic independent of which containers it will run against.

Executing commands against the container before it terminates using the preStop hook

Earlier in this article, we learned about the different signals that Kubernetes sends to the running containers inside the Pods when it wants to bring them down.

However, although the container receives the SIGTERM and it allows the container to shut down for up to thirty seconds - by default, this may not be sufficient for complex scenarios.

Let’s continue with our preceding example, and let’s say that the RESTful API service that is running in parallel with our nginx service needs to perform several steps before it shuts down.

The API designers were smart enough to expose an endpoint specifically for this purpose: executing the shutdown procedure. Kubernetes provides the preStop hook, which gets called right before the SIGTERM signal is sent to the container. The preStop hook also provides the same check methods as the postStart hook: httpGet and exec.

However, unlike the postStart hook, if Kubernetes detects a non-zero exit status or a non-success HTTP code, it will continue the shutdown procedure and send the SIGTERM signal.

Let’s change our example to make a GET request to /shutdown endpoint of our hypothetical service that is running on port 8080:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: client
spec:
containers:
 - image: mynginx
  name: client
  lifecycle:
   preStop:
    httpGet:
    port: 8080
    path: /shutdown

TL;DR

The main difference between a traditional and a cloud-native application is that the latter does not run on an infrastructure that you own or under your control.

Orchestration platforms like Kubernetes were designed to ensure that you get the highest level of application performance and availability given an unpredictable infrastructure. Accordingly, cloud-native applications should be written in a way that honors the contracts and constraints imposed by Kubernetes to enjoy the features it provides.

In this article, we discussed one of the best-practical design patterns for cloud-native applications. The points that we need to drive home here are the following:

• Applications must correctly respond to SIGTERM signals sent to it and perform a clean shutdown.
• If there is a typical startup logic that needs to be applied to containers before they start, you should consider using postStart hooks or init containers depending on your use case (refer to the comparison between both approaches earlier in the article).
• If the application is too complex to perform a clean shutdown just be intercepting the SIGTERM signal, there should be a script or an endpoint that can be called upon to initiate the shutdown procedure.

Kubernetes is a continually evolving project. There may be more hooks in the future to communicate with the container when it is about to be scaled up and down or when the container is asked to release some of its consumed resources to avoid getting killed.

As you can see, Cloud-native applications allows for more automation and more control from the orchestrator’s side to make intelligent decisions.

But you need to put in more thought when designing your applications to make good use of those benefits.