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Compliance · Medium severity

GKE Node Pool Not Using COS Image

Nodes run a general-purpose OS rather than the hardened, minimal one, so the attack surface on every node is larger than it needs to be.

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Google Cloudprovider
Mediumseverity
Compliancewhere it shows up
Manualfix, steps written out

Google CloudKubernetes

Found, explained, handed over.

Where the estate departs from your policies, frameworks and tagging rules.

01

Detect

ZopNight checks this automatically across Google Cloud, with read-only access to the account.

02

Explain

Every finding says exactly what to change: Switch GKE node pool to a COS node image.

03

Fix

The finding opens with the fix already written out, step by step, so it is one ticket, not an investigation.

Applies to
GKE Node Pools on Google Cloud
The fix, by hand
  1. Confirm workloads do not require Ubuntu-specific packages (apt, custom kernel modules, snap).
  2. Create a replacement node pool on Container-Optimized OS: gcloud container node-pools create cos-pool --cluster=‹cluster› --location=‹loc› --image-type=COS_CONTAINERD --machine-type=‹type›.
  3. For workloads needing GPU/ML drivers, use COS_CONTAINERD with the GKE GPU operator (drivers ship in DaemonSet).
  4. Cordon + drain the Ubuntu node pool (kubectl cordon / drain --ignore-daemonsets --delete-emptydir-data).
  5. Delete the old Ubuntu node pool: gcloud container node-pools delete ‹old› --cluster=‹cluster› --location=‹loc›.
  6. Future node pools: pass --image-type=COS_CONTAINERD by default in your IaC modules.

These are the steps the finding carries in the product.

Category
Compliance. Configuration drift from best practice: public access, missing MFA, unencrypted storage, deprecated runtimes.
Where it appears
The Compliance tab of Recommendations, with every affected resource listed.
Rule ID
RC-1225
Full reference

GKE Node Pool Not Using COS Image

Related checks

Node Pool UnderutilisedAzure, Google CloudSpot Node Pool OpportunityAzure, Google CloudGKE Node Pool Machine-Type RightsizingGoogle CloudACM Certificate Expiring SoonAWSAKS Cluster RBAC Not EnabledAzureAzure NSG Open to InternetAzure

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