Question

You created a HorizontalPodAutoscaler targeting a Deployment named 'web' with 'kubectl autoscale deployment web --cpu-percent=50 --min=2 --max=10'. Metrics-server is installed and healthy, and 'kubectl top pods' returns CPU values for the web pods. However, running 'kubectl get hpa' shows the TARGETS column as '<unknown>/50%' and the HPA never scales beyond the minimum. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The Deployment's pod template does not define a CPU resource request in its container spec.

Answer

The metrics-server is not exposing the custom metrics API required for CPU-based scaling.

Answer

The HPA minReplicas is set to 2, which prevents CPU utilization from being calculated.

Answer

The Deployment must use a readiness probe before the HPA can read CPU metrics.