If you need to view the full configuration, you can use: kubectl config view You can switch switch contexts using kubectl without having to specify a whole new kubeconfig file: kubectl config use-context production-context Production-context production production-user defaultĬurrent context is shown with *, but can also be retrieved with kubectl config current-context. * staging-context staging staging-user default You can get currently-configured contexts as follows: $ kubectl config get-contexts Therefore they can be used to switch between combinations of clusters, users with different role permissions (RBAC), and namespaces. With contexts you can have multiple Kubeconfigs merged into one file and just switch between contexts to administer different clusters.Ī context is a combination of a cluster, authentication, and namespace.

Or you can use the -kubeconfig flag for kubectl to specify the path to a config file as part of the command, like kubectl get nodes -kubeconfig ~/custom_config. It is possible to switch between cluster configs using the KUBECONFIG environment variable.

If you manage multiple Kubernetes clusters it is useful to get to grips with using contexts. If you use zsh: source > ~/.zshrc # add autocomplete permanently to your zsh shell If your're using bash as your shell: source > ~/.bashrc # add autocomplete permanently to your bash shell. This is extremely useful for example if you are unsure of the exact name of a resource in a namespace you can compose your command with -n namespace first and then tab will present the resources in that particular namespace, which saves running a kubectl get to retrieve all resources first. The first thing I will always do when using kubectl is set autocomplete, which allows you to use tab auto-completion when composing commands.

Managing Kubernetes contexts and configuration.

I have tried to cover tricks for benefiting beginner kubectl usage, as well as more advanced tips. While this guide assumes you have kubectl already installed, I hope you find something useful here. If you deal with Kubernetes clusters and their components, you will be doing it through kubectl.

This guide is for anyone looking to get more productive with kubectl, the Kubernetes command-line management tool.

List kubectl contexts