Why a node may launch without a taint

When you create a virtual node group, you can add taints to make sure only specific pods run on the nodes in that group. If you configure a taint on the virtual node group but don’t add matching tolerations to your pods, Kubernetes won’t let those pods schedule onto the tainted nodes.

To avoid blocking scheduling, Ocean may launch a node without the taint so your workloads can still run.

How to make sure nodes launch with the correct taint

If you want nodes to scale up from a specific virtual node group and launch with the taint you defined:

• Add the taint to the virtual node group.

• Add a matching toleration to the pods that should run on those nodes.

This ensures the nodes launch with the taint and the pods can schedule correctly.

If you’re using labels instead of taints

You can also control placement using labels and nodeSelector values. If you add labels to a pod, make sure the same labels exist:

• In Node selection in the virtual node group

• In the User Data startup script

Matching these settings ensures your workloads land on the correct nodes every time.