Free nodes are nodes that are not added to node pools. Free nodes exist in clusters that were created before the node pool feature is released. After you add free nodes to a node pool, you can use the node pool to manage the nodes. This topic describes how to add free nodes to a node pool.

Step 1: Create and scale a node pool

Before you add free nodes to a node pool, you must create and scale out a node pool. Make sure that the maximum number of nodes supported by the node pool equals the number of free nodes that you want to add and the node pool uses the same node configuration as the free nodes.

  1. Log on to the ACK console and click Clusters in the left-side navigation pane.
  2. On the Clusters page, click the name of a cluster and choose Nodes > Node Pools in the left-side navigation pane.
  3. In the upper-right corner of the Node Pools page, click Create Node Pool.
  4. In the Create Node Pool dialog box, configure the node pool and click Confirm Order.
    Note

Step 2: Remove free nodes from the cluster

Note You can remove free nodes in the Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) console. When you remove free nodes, you must select Release ECS Instance in the Remove Node dialog box. For more information, see Remove a node.
  1. On the Clusters page, click the name of a cluster and choose Nodes > Nodes in the left-side navigation pane.
  2. On the Nodes page, find a free node that you want to remove and choose More > Remove in the Actions column.
    Note To remove multiple nodes at a time, select the nodes that you want to remove on the Nodes page and click Batch Remove.
  3. In the Remove Node dialog box, select Drain the Node and Release ECS Instance. Read the notes and select I understand the above information and want to remove the node(s). Then, click OK.
    • Release ECS Instance:
      • Only pay-as-you-go ECS instances are released. Subscription ECS instances are not released. The system continues to bill ECS instances that are not released.
      • Subscription ECS instances are automatically released after the subscription expires.
      • If you do not select Release ECS Instance, you are still charged for the ECS instance where the node is deployed.
    • Drain the Node: Select this option to migrate pods that run on the nodes to other nodes in the cluster. Make sure that the nodes that you added in Step 1: Create and scale a node pool can provide sufficient resources to host these pods.
      You can also run the kubectl drain node-name [options] command to migrate pods that run on the nodes to be removed to other nodes in the cluster.
      Note
      • node-name must be in the format of your-region-name.node-id.

        your-region-name specifies the region where the cluster that you want to manage is deployed. node-id specifies the ID of the ECS instance where the node to be removed is deployed. Example: cn-hangzhou.i-xxx.

      • options specifies the optional parameters of the command. Example: --force --ignore-daemonsets --delete-local-data. You can run the kubectl drain --help command to view help information.