What is kube-proxy — is it a Pod or a separate component?

kube-proxy is a separate component of Kubernetes that runs on each node of the cluster. It is not a Pod, although in some setups it may run as a DaemonSet, creating a Pod on each node to manage kube-proxy.

The main task of kube-proxy is to implement network proxy and load balancing for Kubernetes services. It monitors Service and Endpoint objects in the API server and configures traffic routing rules to the corresponding Pods.

kube-proxy can operate in several modes (iptables, IPVS), which determine how routing and load balancing are performed.

Thus, kube-proxy is a component that provides network interaction within the cluster, usually deployed as a DaemonSet, but logically it is a separate service, not just a Pod.