Kubernetes is a portable, extensible, open-source platform for managing containerized workloads and services, that facilitates both declarative configuration and automation. It has a large, rapidly growing ecosystem. Kubernetes services, support, and tools are widely available. Kubernetes provides you with a framework to run distributed systems resiliently. It takes care of scaling and failover for your application, provides deployment patterns, canary deployments, and more. In this blog post, I will mention Kubernetes commands which we need for most of the use-cases.

I will list down kubectl commands in the sections below as a quick reference to work with Kubernetes.

• List Resources
• Create Resources
• Update Resources
• Display the State of Resources
• Delete Resources
• Execute Command
• Print Container Logs
• Modify Kubeconfig Files

List Resources

• Get list of all namespaces

kubectl get namespaces

• Get list of all pods

kubectl get pods

• Get list of all pods with detailed information like IP, Node Name etc...

kubectl get pods -o wide

• Get list of all pods running on a particular node server

kubectl get pods --field-selector=spec.nodeName=[server-name]

• Get list of all replication controllers and services

kubectl get replicationcontroller,services

• Get list of daemonsets

kubectl get daemonset

Create Resources

• Create a new namespace

kubectl create namespace [namespace-name]

• Create a new namespace from JSON or YAML file.

kubectl create –f [filename]

Update Resources

To apply or update a resource use the kubectl apply command.

• Create a new service with the definition contained in [service-config].yaml

kubectl apply -f [service-config].yaml

• Create a new replication controller with the definition contained in [controller-config].yaml

kubectl apply -f [controller-config].yaml

• Create the objects defined in any .yaml, .yml, or .json file in a directory

kubectl apply -f [yaml-file/directory-name]

• Edit a service config

kubectl edit svc/[service-name]

Above command opens the file in your default editor. To choose another editor, specify it in front of the command:

KUBE_EDITOR=”[editor-name]” kubectl edit svc/[service-name]

Display the State of Resources

• Get Details about Particular Node

kubectl describe nodes [node-name]

• Get Details about a Particular pod

kubectl describe pods [pod-name]

• Get Details about a Particular pod whose name and type are listed in pod.json

kubectl describe –f pod.json

• Get Details about a Particular pod managed by a specific replication controller

kubectl describe pods [replication-controller-name]

• Get Details about all pods

kubectl describe pods

Delete Resources

• Delete a pod using the name and type mentioned in pod.yaml

kubectl delete -f pod.yaml

• Delete all pods and services with a specific label

kubectl delete pods,services -l [label-key]=[label-value]

• Delete all pods

kubectl delete pods --all

Execute Command

• Get output from a command run on the first container in a pod

kubectl exec [pod-name] -- [command]

• Get output from a command run on a specific container in a pod

kubectl exec [pod-name] -c [container-name] -- [command]

• Run /bin/bash from a specific pod. The received output comes from the first container

kubectl exec -ti [pod-name] -- /bin/bash

Print Container Logs

• Print Logs from Pod

kubectl logs [pod-name]

• Stream Logs from Pod

kubectl logs -f [pod-name]

• Tail Logs from Pod (Print last 200 logs from pod)

kubectl logs --tail=200 [pod-name]

Modify Kubeconfig Files

kubectl config command lets you view and modify kubeconfig files.

• Get Current Context

kubectl config current-context

• Set cluster entry in kubeconfig

kubectl config set-cluster [cluster-name] --server=[server-name]

• Unset an entry in kubeconfig

kubectl config unset [property-name]

Thank you for reading

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