Pod that restarts without an obvious error

Back to list2026-04-23
You

A pod restarts every few minutes and the logs end normally.

ChatGPT

Look at the previous container, not the current one: kubectl logs pod --previous. A clean ending plus a restart usually means OOMKilled, which shows in kubectl describe pod under Last State. Memory limits are the first thing to check, requests the second.

You

Should requests equal limits?

ChatGPT

For memory, yes: memory is incompressible, so a limit above the request means the pod gets killed rather than throttled. For CPU, set requests and leave limits off unless you need hard isolation, because CPU limits throttle in ways that look like random latency.