Which component exposes the Kubernetes API for clients?

Which component exposes the Kubernetes API for clients?

• A. etcd
• B. kube-scheduler
• C. kube-apiserver
• D. kubelet

Answer: (C)

The kube-apiserver is the front door of the Kubernetes control plane. It exposes the Kubernetes REST API that clients—such as kubectl, controllers, and external apps—use to manage resources like pods, deployments, and services. It handles authentication and authorization, validates requests, enforces admission policies, and then stores the desired state in the distributed store (etcd). All interactions with the cluster go through this API server, making it the central API surface for clients. etcd is the backing store that persists cluster state; it is not exposed to clients. kube-scheduler watches for unscheduled pods and assigns them to nodes by updating the API server, but it does not itself expose an API. kubelet runs on each node, talks to the API server to get pod specs and report status, but it also is not an API surface for clients.

The kube-apiserver is the front door of the Kubernetes control plane. It exposes the Kubernetes REST API that clients—such as kubectl, controllers, and external apps—use to manage resources like pods, deployments, and services. It handles authentication and authorization, validates requests, enforces admission policies, and then stores the desired state in the distributed store (etcd). All interactions with the cluster go through this API server, making it the central API surface for clients.

etcd is the backing store that persists cluster state; it is not exposed to clients. kube-scheduler watches for unscheduled pods and assigns them to nodes by updating the API server, but it does not itself expose an API. kubelet runs on each node, talks to the API server to get pod specs and report status, but it also is not an API surface for clients.