@ScheererJ can you confirm my observation that this init container can be safely removed?

@ialidzhikov Your observation is correct that the first of the two cleanup containers is used per default and there is currently no switch exposed to change this at runtime without doing a code change first. Therefore, the container could be safely removed. However, I would not do it. From my point of view, the approach documented by cilium is dangerous as it simply discards rules according to their names. Therefore, I would rather like to have a fallback option, which is the second container.

From my point of view, the approach documented by cilium is dangerous as it simply discards rules according to their names. Therefore, I would rather like to have a fallback option, which is the second container.

It creates confusion for external contributors and I don't see much value keeping something that never gets executed.
The source code is in VCS - if we remove the init container, it won't get lost and we will be still able to check old revisions if we want to switch back to it.

Right now this init container logs the following warnings/errors:

E0822 12:45:34.286305       1 proxier.go:643] "Failed to read builtin modules file, you can ignore this message when kube-proxy is running inside container without mounting /lib/modules" err="open /lib/modules/5.4.0-6-cloud-amd64/modules.builtin: no such file or directory" filePath="/lib/modules/5.4.0-6-cloud-amd64/modules.builtin"
I0822 12:45:34.288277       1 proxier.go:653] "Failed to load kernel module with modprobe, you can ignore this message when kube-proxy is running inside container without mounting /lib/modules" moduleName="ip_vs"
I0822 12:45:34.289751       1 proxier.go:653] "Failed to load kernel module with modprobe, you can ignore this message when kube-proxy is running inside container without mounting /lib/modules" moduleName="ip_vs_rr"
I0822 12:45:34.291055       1 proxier.go:653] "Failed to load kernel module with modprobe, you can ignore this message when kube-proxy is running inside container without mounting /lib/modules" moduleName="ip_vs_wrr"
I0822 12:45:34.292388       1 proxier.go:653] "Failed to load kernel module with modprobe, you can ignore this message when kube-proxy is running inside container without mounting /lib/modules" moduleName="ip_vs_sh"
I0822 12:45:34.293648       1 proxier.go:653] "Failed to load kernel module with modprobe, you can ignore this message when kube-proxy is running inside container without mounting /lib/modules" moduleName="nf_conntrack"
time="2022-08-22T12:45:34Z" level=warning msg="Running modprobe ip_vs failed with message: `modprobe: WARNING: Module ip_vs not found in directory /lib/modules/5.4.0-6-cloud-amd64`, error: exit status 1"

The reason seems to be that it does not mount /lib/modules from the host. My point is that like everything that is not used, it is about to get outdated (or break).

If you still see value in keeping it, then I can close this issue (and the corresponding draft PR).

Honestly speaking, I doubt that this init container holds any external contributor back. There are far more components in this repository that are not used in the Gardener setup, but still present as they are part of the upstream cilium distribution, e.g. etcd-operator.

Removing the container will leave it in version control for sure. However, you also need to still have in mind that this container existed in case of an issue to actually look for it. People forget over time...

Let's revisit this topic once @DockToFuture is back beginning of October.