Essential kubectl Commands

kubectl is the Swiss Army knife of Kubernetes, providing several commands to interact with your K8s cluster. In this blog post, we’ll explore a range of kubectl commands for various day-to-day operations

1. List Resources

• List all resources: kubectl get all
• List resources in a namespace: kubectl get all -n my-namespace
• List all resources in all namespaces: kubectl get all --all-namespaces

2. Resource Inspection

• Inspect a resource: kubectl describe pod my-pod
• View resource config in YAML format: kubectl get pod my-pod -o yaml

3. Troubleshooting

• View container logs: kubectl logs my-pod
• Start an interactive shell in a container: kubectl exec -it my-pod -- /bin/sh
• Check resource events: kubectl describe pod my-pod

4. Scaling and Updates

• Scale replicas for a deployment: kubectl scale --replicas=5 deployment/my-deployment
• Perform a rolling update: kubectl set image deployment/my-deployment my-container=new-image:tag

5. Contexts and Switching

• List available contexts: kubectl config get-contexts
• Switch to a context: kubectl config use-context my-context

6. Resource Deletion

• Delete a resource: kubectl delete pod my-pod
• Delete resources in a namespace: kubectl delete all --all -n my-namespace
• Delete all resources in all namespaces (with caution): kubectl delete all --all --all-namespaces

7. Port Forwarding

• Forward a local port to a service: kubectl port-forward service/my-service 8080:80

8. Accessing Logs

• Access logs for a previous container: kubectl logs -p my-pod

9. Getting Resource Status

• Check resource status in real-time: kubectl get pods -n my-namespace -w

10. Executing Commands in a Container

• Run a command in a container: kubectl exec my-pod -- ls /app

11. Copying Files

• Copy files from a container: kubectl cp my-pod:/path/to/source /path/to/destination

12. Resource Modification

• Edit a resource configuration in the default editor: kubectl edit pod my-pod
• Apply changes to a resource without needing to delete and recreate: kubectl apply -f my-updated-pod.yaml

13. Rollout Status

• Check rollout status of a deployment: kubectl rollout status deployment/my-deployment

14. Rollback Deployments

• Roll back a deployment to a previous revision: kubectl rollout undo deployment/my-deployment

15. Secrets and ConfigMaps

• Create a Secret: kubectl create secret generic my-secret --from-literal=secret-key=secret-value
• Create a ConfigMap: kubectl create configmap my-configmap --from-literal=config-key=config-value

16. Access Control

• Create a Role: kubectl create role my-role --verb=get,list,create --resource=pods,pods/log --namespace=my-namespace
• Create a RoleBinding: kubectl create rolebinding my-binding --role=my-role --user=my-user

17. Resource Labeling

• Label a resource (e.g., a pod named my-pod): kubectl label pod my-pod my-label=my-value

18. Node Troubleshooting

• Describe a node to inspect its details: kubectl describe node my-node

19. Service Exposing

• Expose a deployment as a service: kubectl expose deployment my-deployment --port=80 --target-port=80 --type=LoadBalancer

20. Custom Columns in Output

• Display custom columns in resource listings: kubectl get pods -o custom-columns=NAME:.metadata.name,IMAGE:.spec.containers[*].image