---
title: How to recover ETCD database space for a Kapsule/Kosmos cluster
description: Learn how to reclaim database space for your Kubernetes Kapsule and Kosmos clusters to stay below your quota.
tags: kubernetes kapsule kosmos etcd
dates:
  validation: 2025-10-06
  posted: 2025-04-01
---
import Requirements from '@macros/iam/requirements.mdx'


Kubernetes Kapsule clusters have quotas on the space they can occupy on an etcd database. See Kapsule [cluster-types](https://api.scaleway.com/k8s/v1/regions/fr-par/cluster-types) for details on each offer.
You can see your current cluster space consumption at any time in your cluster grafana dashboard (`Etcd disk usage` panel).
This guide helps you to free up space on your database to avoid reaching this limit.

<Requirements />

- [Created](/kubernetes/how-to/create-cluster/) a Kubernetes Kapsule cluster
- [Downloaded](/kubernetes/how-to/connect-cluster-kubectl/) the Kubeconfig

* Dump your cluster resources to YAML format and show the characters count, you will have a rough estimation where to look for space to claim

```bash
> kubectl api-resources --verbs=list --namespaced -o name | while read type; do echo -n "Kind: ${type}, Size: "; kubectl get $type -o yaml -A | wc -c; done
Kind: configmaps, Size: 1386841
Kind: endpoints, Size: 82063
Kind: events, Size: 375065
Kind: limitranges, Size: 68
Kind: persistentvolumeclaims, Size: 68
Kind: pods, Size: 3326153
[...]
```

* Looking for unused resources is a good approach, delete any Secrets, large ConfigMaps that are not used anymore in your cluster.

  ```bash
  > kubectl -n $namespace delete $ConfigMapName
  ```

* keep an eye on Helm Charts that are deploying a lot of custom resources (CRDs), they tend to fill up etcd space. You can find them by showing resource kinds

  ```bash
  > kubectl api-resources
  NAME                                SHORTNAMES                          APIVERSION                           NAMESPACED   KIND
  configmaps                          cm                                  v1                                   true         ConfigMap
  endpoints                           ep                                  v1                                   true         Endpoints
  events                              ev                                  v1                                   true         Event
  cronjobs                            cj                                  batch/v1                             true         CronJob
  jobs                                                                    batch/v1                             true         Job
  [...]
  ```
Look for resources with an external apiversion (not _v1_, _apps/v1_, _storage.k8s.io/v1_ or _batch/v1_ for example).

<Message type="note">
    It is known that cluster with many nodes and with at least one GPU node may have a lot of _nodefeatures_ objects polluting their etcd space. We are working on a long-term fix but for now manually deleting these objects and downsizing the cluster (or upgrading to a dedicated offer with a bigger etcd quota) is the best solution.
</Message>

* If you have a doubt on space taken by a resource, you can dump it to get its size

  ```bash
  > kubectl get nodefeature -n kube-system   $node-feature-name -o yaml | wc -c
    305545 // ~300KiB, big object
  ```