Understanding Sidecar Containers

Regular Kubernetes users are likely familiar with the sidecar pattern. The sidecar pattern has enjoyed popularity in the Kubernetes world for its ability to extend the functionality of a primary container with little modification to the main workload. But have you ever taken the time to really understand what is going on inside of a sidecar container at the operating system level?

In this video, we take a closer look at the underlying concepts that enable sidecar containers to function. We'll look at a realistic example (the Vault Agent sidecar) to gain a better understanding of how Kubernetes enables the sidecar pattern.

VIDEO CHAPTERS

00:00 - Intro
00:14 - Video Overview
00:23 - Background
01:06 - Environment Setup

02:03 - Workload Definition
03:26 - Workload Inspection - Within the Container
04:31 - Workload Inspection - On the Host
05:09 - Workload Inspection - Mount Namespace
06:18 - Workload Inspection - Network Namespace

07:45 - Conclusion and Outro

[quinnmiller]

Awesome, detailed explanation! Would love to see a deep dive into service meshes like Istio.