Configure health probes

Each container that lands on our platform should be configured with Liveness, Readiness, and Startup probes as defined by Kubernetes standards.

Liveness probe

A liveness probe indicates whether the application running. In our example application we have an example on how to configure a liveness probe for a Springboot application. To be clear: This is a specific example for a Springboot application and should be used as an example. First, you set the ‘management.health.livenessState.enabled’ property to true in your application.properties file:

management.health.livenessState.enabled=true

In the deployment definition, you configure the probe itself:

liveness-probe-example.yaml

livenessProbe:
    httpGet:
        path: /actuator/health/liveness
        port: 8080
    periodSeconds: 30
    initialDelaySeconds: 60

Readiness probe

A readiness probe demonstrates if the container is ready to respond to requests. Also for the readiness probe, we have a practical Springboot application example. This works the same way as for the liveness probe by setting a property in the application.properties file:

management.health.readinessState.enabled

The readiness probe configuration is also in the deployment definition:

readiness-probe-example.yaml

readinessProbe:
    httpGet:
        path: /actuator/health/readiness
        port: 8080
    periodSeconds: 10
    initialDelaySeconds: 60

Startup probe

Indicates whether the application within the container is started. We do not have an example for this yet.

Related links

• Configure liveness, readiness and startup probes
• Pod Lifecycle - Container Probes