diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 1824b4514eb22..95da04963bef8 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -6022,6 +6022,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "futures",
  "hyper 1.9.0",
  "hyper-util",
+ "libc",
  "mz-alloc",
  "mz-alloc-default",
  "mz-build-info",
diff --git a/src/clusterd/Cargo.toml b/src/clusterd/Cargo.toml
index f964fdc9a0767..7970a7f54fec0 100644
--- a/src/clusterd/Cargo.toml
+++ b/src/clusterd/Cargo.toml
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ fail.workspace = true
 futures.workspace = true
 hyper.workspace = true
 hyper-util.workspace = true
+libc.workspace = true
 mz-alloc = { path = "../alloc" }
 mz-alloc-default = { path = "../alloc-default", optional = true }
 mz-build-info = { path = "../build-info" }
@@ -38,7 +39,7 @@ mz-storage-client = { path = "../storage-client" }
 mz-storage-types = { path = "../storage-types" }
 mz-timely-util = { path = "../timely-util" }
 mz-txn-wal = { path = "../txn-wal" }
-nix.workspace = true
+nix = { workspace = true, features = ["hostname", "signal"] }
 num_cpus.workspace = true
 serde.workspace = true
 tokio.workspace = true
diff --git a/src/clusterd/src/lib.rs b/src/clusterd/src/lib.rs
index 39b6b45b04d7b..5da958c1657f3 100644
--- a/src/clusterd/src/lib.rs
+++ b/src/clusterd/src/lib.rs
@@ -48,6 +48,51 @@ mod usage_metrics;
 
 const BUILD_INFO: BuildInfo = build_info!();
 
+/// Note: `getaddrinfo` is a blocking call with no timeout. If DNS is
+/// unavailable at pod startup (e.g., CoreDNS restart), this will block
+/// the main thread indefinitely. In practice this is rare since CoreDNS
+/// runs as a DaemonSet and is available before user pods start.
+fn resolve_fqdn(short_hostname: &str) -> String {
+    use std::ffi::{CStr, CString};
+    use std::ptr;
+
+    let Ok(c_host) = CString::new(short_hostname) else {
+        return short_hostname.to_string();
+    };
+
+    let mut hints: libc::addrinfo = unsafe { std::mem::zeroed() };
+    hints.ai_flags = libc::AI_CANONNAME;
+    hints.ai_family = libc::AF_UNSPEC;
+
+    let mut result: *mut libc::addrinfo = ptr::null_mut();
+
+    let rc = unsafe { libc::getaddrinfo(c_host.as_ptr(), ptr::null(), &hints, &mut result) };
+
+    if rc != 0 || result.is_null() {
+        eprintln!(
+            "warning: getaddrinfo failed for {:?} (rc={}); falling back to short hostname. \
+             GRPC host validation may not work correctly.",
+            short_hostname, rc
+        );
+        return short_hostname.to_string();
+    }
+
+    let fqdn = unsafe {
+        let info = &*result;
+        if info.ai_canonname.is_null() {
+            short_hostname.to_string()
+        } else {
+            CStr::from_ptr(info.ai_canonname)
+                .to_string_lossy()
+                .into_owned()
+        }
+    };
+
+    unsafe { libc::freeaddrinfo(result) };
+
+    fqdn
+}
+
 pub static VERSION: LazyLock<String> = LazyLock::new(|| BUILD_INFO.human_version(None));
 
 /// Independent cluster server for Materialize.
@@ -174,9 +219,77 @@ struct Args {
     enable_storage_introspection_logs: bool,
 }
 
+/// On Linux, PID 1 has special signal semantics: the kernel will not
+/// deliver signals whose disposition is SIG_DFL (the default). Since
+/// distroless containers run the binary directly as PID 1 (no tini),
+/// signals like SIGTERM from Kubernetes pod termination would be silently
+/// ignored without explicit handlers. This function registers a handler
+/// that restores the default disposition and re-raises, producing the
+/// expected termination behavior.
+fn install_termination_signal_handlers() {
+    use nix::sys::signal;
+
+    extern "C" fn handle_signal(signum: i32) {
+        let action = signal::SigAction::new(
+            signal::SigHandler::SigDfl,
+            signal::SaFlags::SA_NODEFER | signal::SaFlags::SA_ONSTACK,
+            signal::SigSet::empty(),
+        );
+        unsafe { signal::sigaction(signum.try_into().unwrap(), &action) }
+            .unwrap_or_else(|_| panic!("failed to uninstall handler for {}", signum));
+        let ret = unsafe { libc::raise(signum) };
+        if ret == -1 {
+            panic!("failed to re-raise signal {}", signum);
+        }
+    }
+
+    let action = signal::SigAction::new(
+        signal::SigHandler::Handler(handle_signal),
+        signal::SaFlags::SA_NODEFER | signal::SaFlags::SA_ONSTACK,
+        signal::SigSet::empty(),
+    );
+    for signum in &[
+        signal::SIGHUP,
+        signal::SIGINT,
+        signal::SIGALRM,
+        signal::SIGTERM,
+    ] {
+        unsafe { signal::sigaction(*signum, &action) }
+            .unwrap_or_else(|e| panic!("failed to install handler for {}: {}", signum, e));
+    }
+}
+
 pub fn main() {
+    install_termination_signal_handlers();
+
     mz_ore::panic::install_enhanced_handler();
 
+    // SAFETY: Called before any threads are spawned.
+    // `install_enhanced_handler` above only registers a panic hook; it does
+    // not spawn threads. The hook spawns a thread only if a panic fires,
+    // which cannot happen between here and the first `unsafe` call below.
+    if std::env::var("KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST").is_ok() {
+        if std::env::var("CLUSTERD_GRPC_HOST").is_err() {
+            if let Ok(hostname) = nix::unistd::gethostname() {
+                if let Some(short) = hostname.to_str() {
+                    let fqdn = resolve_fqdn(short);
+                    unsafe { std::env::set_var("CLUSTERD_GRPC_HOST", &fqdn) };
+                }
+            }
+        }
+        if std::env::var("CLUSTERD_PROCESS").is_err() {
+            // Extract the ordinal index from the last segment of the
+            // StatefulSet hostname (e.g., "mz5ncn-cluster-s1-replica-s1-gen-1-0"
+            // → "0"). This matches orchestrator-kubernetes which also uses
+            // split('-').next_back() to extract the process ID from pod names.
+            if let Ok(hostname) = std::env::var("HOSTNAME") {
+                if let Some(ordinal) = hostname.rsplit('-').next() {
+                    unsafe { std::env::set_var("CLUSTERD_PROCESS", ordinal) };
+                }
+            }
+        }
+    }
+
     let args = cli::parse_args(CliConfig {
         env_prefix: Some("CLUSTERD_"),
         enable_version_flag: true,