kubectl Cheat Sheet (Kubernetes CLI)¶

A practical kubectl cheat sheet for day-to-day debugging and operations.

Setup & context¶

Show current context and switch clusters:

kubectl config current-context
kubectl config get-contexts
kubectl config use-context <context-name>

Set a default namespace for the current context:

kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=<ns>

Quick “what’s running?”¶

kubectl get nodes -o wide
kubectl get ns
kubectl get pods -A
kubectl get pods -n <ns> -o wide
kubectl get deploy,rs,svc,ing -n <ns>

Watch changes:

kubectl get pods -n <ns> -w

Describe & events (first stop for debugging)¶

kubectl describe pod <pod> -n <ns>
kubectl describe deploy <deploy> -n <ns>
kubectl get events -n <ns> --sort-by=.metadata.creationTimestamp

Logs¶

Single container:

kubectl logs <pod> -n <ns>
kubectl logs <pod> -n <ns> -f

Specific container in a multi-container pod:

kubectl logs <pod> -n <ns> -c <container>

Previous crash:

kubectl logs <pod> -n <ns> --previous

Exec / shell in a container¶

kubectl exec -n <ns> -it <pod> -- sh
kubectl exec -n <ns> -it <pod> -c <container> -- bash

Port-forward¶

Pod:

kubectl port-forward -n <ns> pod/<pod> 8080:8080

Service:

kubectl port-forward -n <ns> svc/<service> 8080:80

Apply / rollout¶

Apply manifests:

kubectl apply -f k8s/
kubectl apply -f app.yaml -n <ns>

Deployment rollout status:

kubectl rollout status deploy/<deploy> -n <ns>
kubectl rollout history deploy/<deploy> -n <ns>

Rollback:

kubectl rollout undo deploy/<deploy> -n <ns>

Scale & restart¶

Scale replicas:

kubectl scale deploy/<deploy> -n <ns> --replicas=3

Restart a deployment (forces new ReplicaSet):

kubectl rollout restart deploy/<deploy> -n <ns>

Delete safely¶

Delete one resource:

kubectl delete pod/<pod> -n <ns>
kubectl delete -f app.yaml -n <ns>

Delete a namespace (careful):

kubectl delete ns <ns>

YAML/JSON output + common JSONPath¶

Get full YAML:

kubectl get deploy/<deploy> -n <ns> -o yaml

Common JSONPath snippets:

# Image(s) used by a deployment
kubectl get deploy/<deploy> -n <ns> -o jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.containers[*].image}{"\n"}'

# Pod phase + node
kubectl get pod/<pod> -n <ns> -o jsonpath='{.status.phase}{" on "}{.spec.nodeName}{"\n"}'

Troubleshooting patterns¶

Pod stuck Pending: - Check node capacity / taints / tolerations / PVC binding.

kubectl describe pod <pod> -n <ns>
kubectl get pvc -n <ns>
kubectl get nodes

CrashLoopBackOff: - Check logs + --previous, then events.

kubectl logs <pod> -n <ns> --previous
kubectl describe pod <pod> -n <ns>

ImagePullBackOff: - Check image name/tag and registry credentials.

kubectl describe pod <pod> -n <ns>
kubectl get secret -n <ns>

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