Nodes go NotReady while pod logs stay innocent. How do kernel failures surface into Kubernetes, and what does Node Problem Detector add?

Heartbeats, conditions and taints are the only vocabulary the control plane understands. NPD translates journald and kernel ring messages into that vocabulary; custom plugins carry your hardware's dialect.

Grounded in researched DevOps, SRE and platform engineering interview loops, written to a senior-engineer editorial bar, and never padded to hit a word count.