Best approach to remove cPanel and CloudLinux from a single-node production Kubernetes server

General Discussions Windows
1

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for advice on the safest approach for our current production environment.

Current setup

  • Single-node production Kubernetes cluster.

  • The node is running CloudLinux OS.

  • cPanel is installed on the same server.

  • Multiple production Kubernetes workloads are currently running on this node.

Goal

We would like to:

  1. Remove cPanel completely.

  2. Remove CloudLinux and move to a standard Linux distribution (such as AlmaLinux or Ubuntu).

  3. Keep the existing Kubernetes cluster and workloads running with minimal or no downtime, if possible.

Concerns

Since this is a single-node production cluster, we are concerned about:

  • Breaking the Kubernetes installation.

  • Losing persistent volumes or application data.

  • Affecting networking (CNI), container runtime, or kubelet.

  • Causing unexpected downtime during the OS change.

Questions

  1. Is it possible to uninstall cPanel without impacting an existing Kubernetes installation?

  2. Is there any supported method to remove CloudLinux and convert the system to another OS without rebuilding the server?

  3. If not, what would be considered the best practice for migrating a single-node production Kubernetes cluster to a new operating system?

  4. Would the recommended approach be to provision a new server, install Kubernetes, migrate the workloads and persistent data, validate everything, and then decommission the old node?

I understand that running production Kubernetes on a single node is not ideal, and we’re planning to improve the architecture. Before making any changes, I’d like to hear recommendations from anyone who has performed a similar migration.

Any guidance or best practices would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!