What is the purpose of liveness probes in Kubernetes?

Liveness probes in Kubernetes serve the primary purpose of determining whether a container is running properly. When a liveness probe fails, Kubernetes recognizes that the container is in a failed state and takes action to restart it. This is crucial for maintaining the overall health and availability of applications running within a Kubernetes cluster.

Liveness probes specifically focus on the operational status of applications; they check if the application is responding as expected. If it becomes unresponsive or enters a failed state, the probe triggers a restart to recover from this undesirable situation, thereby helping to ensure high availability and resilience of services.

The other options do not capture the primary function of liveness probes. For instance, checking if a pod is scheduled correctly pertains more to the scheduling and resource allocation aspects of Kubernetes rather than the health of the containers. Assessing network connectivity and verifying resource consumption are also outside the intended use of liveness probes, as these are typically monitored using different tools and mechanisms within Kubernetes.