AKS Namespace Won't Delete

Question

Currently, I am trying to delete one of my namespaces, but it keeps getting automatically recreated.

This is the yaml file of the namespace and I have no idea why it keeps creating itself.

kind: Namespace
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: app-routing-system
  uid: <--uid-->
  labels:
    kubernetes.io/metadata.name: app-routing-system
  managedFields:
    - manager: aks-app-routing-operator
      operation: Apply
      apiVersion: v1
      time: '2025-01-15T19:41:46Z'
      fieldsType: FieldsV1
      fieldsV1:
        f:spec: {}
spec:
  finalizers:
    - kubernetes
status:
  phase: Active

Answer 1

Hi Ho, Keith D,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A Platform. Thank you for posting your query here.

From your Yaml file, I can see the AKS App Routing Operator (aks-app-routing-operator) is managing this namespace. It automatically recreates system namespaces required for app routing if they are missing. This is evident from the managedFields entry in your YAML, which lists aks-app-routing-operator as the manager.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/app-routing#remove-the-application-routing-add-on

Check if AKS App Routing is enabled on your cluster:

az aks show --resource-group <your-resource-group> --name <your-cluster-name> --query "addonProfiles.appRouting"

To disable App Routing addon.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/aks/approuting?view=azure-cli-latest#az-aks-approuting-disable

After disabling, delete the namespace:

kubectl delete namespace app-routing-system

You can remove the Namespace Finalizer (If Stuck in Terminating State)

https://kubernetes.io/blog/2021/05/14/using-finalizers-to-control-deletion/#forcing-a-deletion-of-a-namespace

Hope this helps!

Let me know if you have any further queries!

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