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Cover image for Part-99: 🚀Implement Job ActiveDeadlineSeconds in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
Latchu@DevOps
Latchu@DevOps

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Part-99: 🚀Implement Job ActiveDeadlineSeconds in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

#kubernetes #googlecloud #cloud #devops

In Kubernetes, Jobs are used to run tasks that need to finish successfully (like batch jobs, log analysis, or report generation). Sometimes, we want to make sure a Job doesn’t run forever — and that’s where activeDeadlineSeconds comes in.

🔹 Step 1: What is activeDeadlineSeconds?

It sets the maximum time (in seconds) a Job can run.

If the Job does not finish within this time, Kubernetes terminates it automatically.

Useful for:

  • Avoiding Jobs running indefinitely.
  • Saving resources in case of failures or long-running processes.

Important:

  • This field goes under Job spec (.spec.activeDeadlineSeconds).
  • It applies to the entire Job, not just individual Pods.

🔹 Step 2: Example Job (job5.yaml) 

apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: Job
metadata:
  name: job5
spec:
  template:
    metadata:
      name: job5
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: job5
        image: alpine
        command: ['sh', '-c', 'echo Running Kubernetes Job Demo ; sleep 20']
      restartPolicy: Never
  backoffLimit: 4
  completions: 4
  parallelism: 2
  activeDeadlineSeconds: 5   # ⛔ Will fail (less than sleep time)
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👉 Here, each pod sleeps for 20 seconds, but the Job deadline is just 5 seconds. So, it fails.

🔹 Step 3: Deploy and Check the Job 

# Deploy Job
kubectl apply -f job5.yaml

# List Jobs
kubectl get jobs

# Describe Job
kubectl describe job job5

# List Pods
kubectl get pods
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✅ Observation:

Pods start but terminate early due to deadline.

Job shows 0/4 completions.

Sample Output:

$ kubectl get jobs
NAME   COMPLETIONS   DURATION   AGE
job5   0/4           18s        18s
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And describe shows:

Warning  DeadlineExceeded  job-controller  Job was active longer than specified deadline
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🔹 Step 4: Fix the Job with a Larger Deadline

Update job5.yaml:

activeDeadlineSeconds: 60   # ✅ Enough time to finish
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Apply again:

kubectl apply -f job5.yaml
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Now check:

kubectl get jobs
kubectl get pods
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✅ Observation:

4 Pods complete successfully (2 at a time).

Job shows 4/4 completions.

Sample Output:

$ kubectl get jobs
NAME   COMPLETIONS   DURATION   AGE
job5   4/4           34s        77s
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j1

🔹 Step 5: Clean Up 

kubectl delete job job5
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🎯 Final Thoughts

  • activeDeadlineSeconds is a simple but powerful field for controlling job runtime.
  • Helps prevent resource wastage and ensures timeouts are enforced.
  • Always set it based on your workload needs.

🌟 Thanks for reading! If this post added value, a like ❤️, follow, or share would encourage me to keep creating more content.

— Latchu | Senior DevOps & Cloud Engineer

☁️ AWS | GCP | ☸️ Kubernetes | 🔐 Security | ⚡ Automation
📌 Sharing hands-on guides, best practices & real-world cloud solutions

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