Useful kubectl commands

The following commands are useful for checking the status of your cluster or of the applications running in it

kubectl get <resource> [instance] [-o json] : Get a list or single instance of a kubernetes resource.

Resources:

• deployment

• service

• configmap

• secret

• statefulset

• pod

• <any other kubernetes resource>

kubectl describe <resource> <instance> : Shows details of the resource instance status. Useful for troubleshooting

kubectl logs <pod|controller> <instance> <container> [--all-containers=true] [-f] : Print the logs of the specified pod or resource. The -f flag can be used to follow logs.

kubectl exec <podname> [-c containername] -- <command> : Execute the command in a container. To interactively run the command, add the -it flag. This works more or less identically to the docker exec command.

kubectl delete <resource> <instance> : Delete the specified resource instance.

kubectl port-forward <podname> localport:podport : Start a local listener that forwards all traffic on localhost:localport to the podport in the pod on the cluster. Useful for testing applications where there is no external network access.

For more useful commands, see the kubectl Cheat Sheet