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kube-proxy: Turning a ClusterIP Into a Real Destination

A Kubernetes Service is a virtual IP — it isn't bound to any machine. kube-proxy is the component that turns that virtual IP into forwarding rules on each node, so traffic to a ClusterIP lands on a real pod behind it. This article installs kube-proxy in iptables mode on two workers, dissects the NAT chains it generates, then curls a ClusterIP directly to watch it work — all without pod networking yet.