Helpful kubectl Commands for Developers

This entry shows usefule kubectl commands that I find very useful and use almost every day when working with in the kubernete environment.

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What is Kubernetes

Kubernetes, often called k8s, is an open-source platform to automate cicd or containerized applications. It was originally developed by Google.

Key Features and Components

What is Docker

In this article, I will list helpful commands for a developer who works with k8s environment from your local dev machine.

Get Contexts

Get all available contexts

kubectl config get-contexts

See current context

kubectl config current-context

Set current context

kubectl config use-context <context-name>

Cluster

To get cluster-info

kubectl cluster-info

To display resource usage

kubectl top
kubectl top pods

General Resources

List resources:

kubectl get

Describe a resource

kubectl describe

Describe the nodes

kubectl describe nodes

Services

List services for all namespaces

kubectl get services --all-namespaces
or
kubectl get svc --all-namespaces

To get services for just a namespace

kubectl get services -n <namespace>

Pods

Get current pods (in the current context)

kubectl get pods

Describe a specific pod

kubectl describe pod <pod-name>

Execute a Command inside a container

kubectl exec -it my-pod -- /bin/bash
root@my-pod:/# ls
bin  dev  home  root  var  etc
root@my-pod:/# exit

Get logs of a pod

kubectl logs my-pod -c my-container

Port Forward

This example show forwarding local port 5000 to the pod’s port 6000

kubectl port-forward my-pod 5000:6000

Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:5000 -> 6000
Forwarding from [::1]:5000 -> 6000