---
title: Liveness probe is not defined
description: Datadog, the leading service for cloud-scale monitoring.
breadcrumbs: >-
  Docs > Datadog Security > Code Security > Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
  Security > IaC Security Rules > Liveness probe is not defined
---

# Liveness probe is not defined

{% callout %}
# Important note for users on the following Datadog sites: app.ddog-gov.com

{% alert level="danger" %}
This product is not supported for your selected [Datadog site](https://docs.datadoghq.com/getting_started/site). ().
{% /alert %}

{% /callout %}

## Metadata{% #metadata %}

**Id:** `ade74944-a674-4e00-859e-c6eab5bde441`

**Cloud Provider:** Kubernetes

**Platform:** Kubernetes

**Severity:** Low

**Category:** Availability

#### Learn More{% #learn-more %}

- [Provider Reference](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/pod-lifecycle/#when-should-you-use-a-liveness-probe)

### Description{% #description %}

A liveness probe can improve availability by restarting unresponsive containers but can also cause cascading failures. Define a `livenessProbe` only when necessary and configure it to avoid unintended restarts. This rule flags containers that do not include a `livenessProbe`, excluding Job and CronJob resource kinds.

## Compliant Code Examples{% #compliant-code-examples %}

```yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  labels:
    test: liveness
  name: liveness-exec
spec:
  containers:
  - name: liveness
    image: k8s.gcr.io/busybox
    args:
    - /bin/sh
    - -c
    - touch /tmp/healthy; sleep 30; rm -rf /tmp/healthy; sleep 600
    livenessProbe:
      exec:
        command:
        - cat
        - /tmp/healthy
      initialDelaySeconds: 5
      periodSeconds: 5

---

apiVersion: batch/v1beta1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: hello
spec:
  schedule: "*/1 * * * *"
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          containers:
          - name: hello
            image: busybox
            imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
            args:
            - /bin/sh
            - -c
            - date; echo Hello from the Kubernetes cluster
          restartPolicy: OnFailure
```

## Non-Compliant Code Examples{% #non-compliant-code-examples %}

```yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  labels:
    test: liveness
  name: liveness-exec
spec:
  containers:
  - name: liveness
    image: k8s.gcr.io/busybox
    args:
    - /bin/sh
    - -c
    - touch /tmp/healthy; sleep 30; rm -rf /tmp/healthy; sleep 600
```