Ports and Protocols

When running Kubernetes in an environment with strict network boundaries, such as on-premises datacenter with physical network firewalls or Virtual Networks in Public Cloud, it is useful to be aware of the ports and protocols used by Kubernetes components

Control plane

Protocol	Direction	Port Range	Purpose	Used By
TCP	Inbound	6443	Kubernetes API server	All
TCP	Inbound	2379-2380	etcd server client API	kube-apiserver, etcd
TCP	Inbound	10250	Kubelet API	Self, Control plane
TCP	Inbound	10259	kube-scheduler	Self
TCP	Inbound	10257	kube-controller-manager	Self

Although etcd ports are included in control plane section, you can also host your own etcd cluster externally or on custom ports.

Worker node(s)

Protocol	Direction	Port Range	Purpose	Used By
TCP	Inbound	10250	Kubelet API	Self, Control plane
TCP	Inbound	30000-32767	NodePort Services†	All

† Default port range for NodePort Services.

All default port numbers can be overridden. When custom ports are used those ports need to be open instead of defaults mentioned here.

One common example is API server port that is sometimes switched to 443. Alternatively, the default port is kept as is and API server is put behind a load balancer that listens on 443 and routes the requests to API server on the default port.