Book Image

kubectl: Command-Line Kubernetes in a Nutshell

By : Rimantas Mocevicius
Book Image

kubectl: Command-Line Kubernetes in a Nutshell

By: Rimantas Mocevicius

Overview of this book

The kubectl command line tool lets you control Kubernetes clusters to manage nodes in the cluster and perform all types of Kubernetes operations. This introductory guide will get you up to speed with kubectl in no time. The book is divided into four parts, touching base on the installation and providing a general overview of kubectl in the first part. The second part introduces you to managing Kubernetes clusters and working with nodes. In the third part, you’ll be taken through the different ways in which you can manage Kubernetes applications, covering how to create, update, delete, view, and debug applications. The last part of the book focuses on various Kubernetes plugins and commands. You’ll get to grips with using Kustomize and discover Helm, a Kubernetes package manager. In addition to this, you’ll explore how you can use equivalent Docker commands in kubectl. By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to install and update an application on Kubernetes, view its logs, and inspect clusters effectively.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
1
Section 1: Getting Started with kubectl
3
Section 2: Kubernetes Cluster and Node Management
6
Section 3: Application Management
10
Section 4: Extending kubectl

Using shell aliases for kubectl commands

Typing kubectl with a command every time is both boring and time-consuming. You can use kubectl command completion in the Bash and Zsh shells, which helps of course, but it is still not as quick as using aliases.

Let's overview a list of some handy kubectl commands and use them with aliases that you can put in the zsh_aliases or bash_aliases files, depending on which shell you are using:

  • k for kubectl—this speaks for itself.
  • kg for kubectl get—this is useful to get a list of pods, deployments, statefulsets, services, nodes, and other details, as shown in the following example command:
    $ kg nodes

    The output of the preceding command is shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 10.1 – kg nodes output

The preceding screenshot shows a list of available Kubernetes nodes in the cluster by running the $ kg nodes command.

  • kd for kubectl describe—this is useful to describe...