What is a Headless Service in Kubernetes?

In Kubernetes, a Service is typically used to provide a stable IP address and DNS name for a set of Pods. By default, Kubernetes assigns a ClusterIP to the Service, and traffic is load balanced between available Pods.

But sometimes you don’t want load balancing — you want direct DNS records for each Pod. That’s where a Headless Service comes in.

How It Works

A Headless Service is created by setting:

clusterIP: None

This tells Kubernetes not to assign a virtual IP. Instead, DNS returns A records for each Pod behind the Service.

Example: Headless Service

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: my-db
  labels:
    app: my-db
spec:
  clusterIP: None
  selector:
    app: my-db
  ports:
    - port: 5432
      name: db

With this setup:

Instead of one IP, DNS will return multiple entries:

my-db.default.svc.cluster.local -> Pod1_IP, Pod2_IP, Pod3_IP

nslookup ignite-headless
Server:		10.233.0.3
Address:	10.233.0.3:53

Name:	ignite-headless
Address: 10.234.199.202
Name:	ignite-headless
Address: 10.234.103.153
Name:	ignite-headless
Address: 10.234.81.223

Common Use Cases

• Databases (Postgres, Cassandra, etc.): each Pod may store different data and should be accessed individually.
• StatefulSets: Pods have stable DNS names like pod-0.my-db.default.svc.cluster.local.
• Service Discovery: some applications prefer to handle load balancing themselves.

Conclusion

Headless Services give you more control over how applications discover and connect to Pods, making them a key tool in advanced Kubernetes deployments.