How exactly do Kubernetes Services interact with pods?

Kubernetes Services facilitate traffic forwarding to pods using label selectors and IP table rules managed by kube-proxy. When a service is created, a cluster IP (for ClusterIP services), a Node port (for NodePort services), or an external IP (for LoadBalancer services) is assigned.

Pods within the cluster discover and communicate with services using DNS-based service discovery. Each service is assigned a DNS record that pods can access. kube-proxy intercepts traffic sent to the service’s ClusterIP and applies IP table rules to route it to the appropriate pods based on the service’s selector criteria.

For services with multiple pods, kube-proxy implements load-balancing strategies to distribute traffic among them. NodePort and LoadBalancer services involve additional IP table rules to forward traffic from the specified port to the ClusterIP Service and then to the relevant pods.

The main load-balancing...