Final answer:
The drain command in Kubernetes prepares a node for maintenance by evicting all pods, while the cordon command marks a node as unschedulable to prevent new pods from being scheduled on it.
Step-by-step explanation:
The difference between the drain command and the cordon command typically refers to their use in a computer system, particularly in the context of managing nodes in a Kubernetes cluster. The drain command is used to prepare a node for maintenance or shutdown. This process involves safely evicting all the pods from the node, respecting the pod disruption budgets set by the administrator. On the other hand, the cordon command is applied to a node to mark it as unschedulable. This prevents any new pods from being scheduled on the node while allowing the current pods to continue running. Cordoning a node is a softer approach compared to draining, as it does not affect the existing workloads, but rather controls future pod placement.