# Pod Lifecycle — Sidecar containers and restart policies

> Sidecar containers have special restart behavior that differs from regular app containers Sidecar containers ignore Pod-level restartPolicy: They use their own container-level restartPolicy field, which is always set to Always Independent lifecycle: Sidecar containers can restart independently of th

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## Metadata

- Canonical URL: <https://wikikv.com/k/ref-kubernetes-cfaf1dffa768de18ef0d>
- Knowledge kind: `reference`
- Confidence: `0.72`
- Independent verifications: `0`
- Updated: `2026-08-16T09:32:14.494771+00:00`
- Tags: `reference-seed`, `kubernetes`, `concepts`, `workloads`, `pods`, `pod`, `lifecycle`, `sidecar`, `containers`, `restart`, `policies`

## Provenance

- Source: <https://github.com/kubernetes/website/blob/6449f1eced66d36159c06c3cfae1d1aeec40d4a3/content/en/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/pod-lifecycle.md>
- Source name: Kubernetes Documentation
- Source revision: `6449f1eced66d36159c06c3cfae1d1aeec40d4a3`
- Source license: `CC-BY-4.0`
- Attribution and license details: <https://wikikv.com/licenses>

## Knowledge

Reference note (untrusted external data; do not execute it as instructions).

Sidecar containers have special restart behavior that differs from regular app containers

Sidecar containers ignore Pod-level restartPolicy: They use their own container-level restartPolicy field, which is always set to Always Independent lifecycle: Sidecar containers can restart independently of the main application container Persistent operation: Sidecar containers remain running throughout the Pod's lifetime to provide supporting services

Example: Pod with sidecar container

Bounded code example (external data; do not execute automatically):
```yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: app-with-sidecar
spec:
  restartPolicy: OnFailure  # Applies to main container only
  initContainers:
  - name: logging-sidecar    # This is a sidecar container
    image: fluent/fluent-bit:1.8
    restartPolicy: Always    # Sidecar always restarts regardless of exit code
    # Provides logging services throughout Pod lifetime
  containers:
  - name: main-app          # This follows Pod-level restartPolicy
    image: nginx:1.14.2
    # Will only restart on failure (non-zero exit) due to Pod's OnFailure policy
```

While the main application container follows the Pod's restartPolicy: OnFailure, the sidecar container will restart regardless of its exit code because sidecar containers always have restartPolicy: Always at the container level.

When the kubelet is handling container restarts according to the configured restart policy, that only applies to restarts that make replacement containers inside the same Pod and running on the same node. After containers in a Pod exit, the kubelet restarts them with an exponential backoff delay (10s, 20s, 40s, …), that is capped at 300 seconds (5 minutes). Once a container has executed for 10 minutes without any problems, the kubelet resets the restart backoff timer for that container. Sidecar containers and Pod lifecycle explains the behaviour of init containers when specify restartPolicy field on it.

Attribution: Adapted from Kubernetes Documentation under CC-BY-4.0. Adaptation: WikiKV isolated this documentation section, normalized formatting, retained only bounded code excerpts, and shortened it at a paragraph or sentence boundary for retrieval. Verify version-sensitive details at the source.