Kubernetes HPA Scaling Storm

Problem

When an HPA is configured with a memory or CPU utilization target but the underlying deployment has insufficient resource requests, the HPA calculates artificially high utilization percentages (e.g., 220% of a 256Mi request when actual usage is 570Mi). This causes the HPA to scale pods to maxReplicas (often 100) within minutes, exhausting cluster resources and potentially crashing etcd and the API server.

Context / Trigger Conditions

• kubectl get hpa shows <unknown>/70% or very high percentages (200%+)
• Pod count for a deployment rapidly increases to maxReplicas
• etcd timeout errors in kubectl or terraform apply
• API server becomes unreachable (connection refused or network is unreachable)
• Adding resource requests to a Helm chart that previously had none
• Memory-based HPA targets with real usage far exceeding requests

Solution

Emergency Response (stop the storm)

Step 1: Delete the HPA immediately

kubectl --kubeconfig $(pwd)/config delete hpa <hpa-name> -n <namespace>

Step 2: Scale the deployment down

kubectl --kubeconfig $(pwd)/config scale deployment <name> -n <namespace> --replicas=2

Step 3: Wait for pods to terminate and cluster to stabilize

# Watch pod count decrease
kubectl --kubeconfig $(pwd)/config get pods -n <namespace> -l <label> | wc -l

If the API server is unresponsive, wait 3-5 minutes for it to self-recover. The kubelet will restart static pods (etcd, kube-apiserver) automatically.

Prevention

Rule 1: Set resource requests to match actual usage Before enabling HPA, check actual resource consumption:

kubectl top pods -n <namespace> -l <label>

Set requests to the baseline (idle) usage, not the minimum possible value.

Rule 2: Set reasonable maxReplicas Never use maxReplicas > 10 unless you've verified the cluster can handle it. Default of 100 is almost never appropriate for a home/small cluster.

Rule 3: Prefer CPU-only HPA targets Memory-based scaling is problematic because:

• Memory usage grows over time and rarely decreases
• Memory-based scaling creates pods that never scale down
• CPU is more responsive to load changes

Rule 4: Test HPA changes on a deployment with 0 existing pods first If adding resource requests to a deployment managed by HPA, temporarily disable the HPA first, set the requests, verify utilization is reasonable, then re-enable.

Cascade Effects

A scaling storm can cause:

1. etcd storage exhaustion (too many pod objects)
2. API server OOM or connection limits
3. VPN/network connectivity loss (if VPN runs in the cluster)
4. Kyverno webhook failures (admission controller overwhelmed)
5. Other pods evicted or unable to schedule

Verification

• kubectl get hpa -n <namespace> shows reasonable utilization (< 100%)
• Pod count is stable at expected replicas
• kubectl get nodes responds promptly
• No etcd timeout errors

Example

# Observed: HPA scaling Collabora to 100 pods
$ kubectl get hpa -n nextcloud
NAME                 TARGETS                          MINPODS  MAXPODS  REPLICAS
nextcloud-collabora  cpu: 0%/70%, memory: 220%/50%   2        100      83

# Emergency fix
$ kubectl delete hpa nextcloud-collabora -n nextcloud
$ kubectl scale deployment nextcloud-collabora -n nextcloud --replicas=2

# Root cause: 256Mi memory request, actual usage 570Mi
# Fix: increase request to 1Gi or disable memory target

Notes

• If the HPA is managed by a Helm chart, deleting it via kubectl is temporary—the next Helm upgrade will recreate it. You must also update the Helm values.
• In this project, Collabora was ultimately disabled in favor of OnlyOffice to avoid the HPA issue entirely.
• See also: helm-stuck-release-recovery for fixing Helm releases broken by the storm.