What Are Taints and Tolerations?
A taint is a property applied to a node that repels pods, while a toleration is a matching property on a pod that allows it to be scheduled onto a tainted node. Together they let operators reserve nodes for particular workloads, such as GPU jobs or system components. Pods without a matching toleration are kept off the tainted node.
Why it matters
Taints and tolerations give coarse control over which workloads land where, complementing affinity rules. They are commonly used to isolate dedicated hardware, drain nodes safely, or keep general workloads off control-plane nodes.
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