<p>I have a simple replication controller yaml file which looks like this:</p>

<pre><code>apiVersion: v1
kind: ReplicationController
metadata:
  name: nginx
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    app: nginx
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
      - image: library/nginx:3.2
        imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
        name: nginx
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
</code></pre>

<p>And after running this replication controller, I will get 3 different pods whose names are "nginx-xxx", where "xxx" represents a random string of letters and digits.</p>

<p>What I want is to specify names for the pods created by the replication controller, so that the pods' name can be "nginx-01", "nginx-02", "nginx-03". And further more, for say if pod "nginx-02" is down for some reason, and replication controller will automatically create another nginx pod, and I want this new nginx pod's name to remain as "nginx-02".</p>

<p>I wonder if this is possible? Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>You should be using statefulset instead of replication controllers. Moreover, replication controllers are replaced with ReplicaSets. </p>

<p>StatefulSet Pods have a unique identity that is comprised of an ordinal. For a StatefulSet with N replicas, each Pod in the StatefulSet will be assigned an integer ordinal, from 0 up through N-1, that is unique over the Set. Each Pod in a StatefulSet derives its hostname from the name of the StatefulSet and the ordinal of the Pod.</p>

<p>StatefulSets matches your requirements and hence use it in your deployment.</p>

<p>Try the deployment files below:</p>

<pre><code>apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: nginx
  labels:
    app: nginx
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 80
    name: web
  clusterIP: None
  selector:
    app: nginx
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: StatefulSet
metadata:
  name: web
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx # has to match .spec.template.metadata.labels
  serviceName: "nginx"
  replicas: 3 # by default is 1
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx # has to match .spec.selector.matchLabels
    spec:
      terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 10
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: k8s.gcr.io/nginx-slim:0.8
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80
          name: web
        volumeMounts:
        - name: www
          mountPath: /usr/share/nginx/html
      volumes:
      - name: www
        emptyDir:
</code></pre>
