# What does externalTrafficPolicy: Local do on a NodePort or LoadBalancer Service?

Kubernetes, Hard (Expert), Networking. https://k8wiz.com/uquiz/what-does-externaltrafficpolicy-local-do-on-a-nodeport-or-loadbalancer-service

- A. Only accepts connections from clients inside the cluster's network
- B. Sends traffic to the pod with the fewest connections on any node
- C. Preserves the client IP and only uses pods on the receiving node
- D. Prefers pods in the client's zone, falling back to other zones

**Answer:** Preserves the client IP and only uses pods on the receiving node

**Explanation:** With the default Cluster policy, a node can forward traffic to a pod on another node, and SNAT hides the client IP. Local skips that extra hop, so the pod sees the real client IP. The trade-off is that nodes without a ready local pod drop the traffic and load can be uneven. Cloud load balancers use the Service's healthCheckNodePort to stop sending traffic to those nodes.