Commonly Used Kubernetes Commands

These are the basic commands you’ll use often when working with Kubernetes. Think of them as tools to check, create, change, and fix things inside your Kubernetes system.

1. Viewing What's Running

These commands help you see what’s going on inside your Kubernetes cluster.

kubectl get pods          # shows all running pods
kubectl get deployments   # shows all deployments
kubectl get services      # shows all services
kubectl get all           # shows most resources 
		in the current namespace

2. Getting Detailed Information

kubectl describe pod my-pod     # details about one pod
kubectl describe node my-node   # details about one node

3. Creating Things

kubectl create -f my-deployment.yaml   # create from file

4. Updating Things

kubectl apply -f my-deployment.yaml   # update using the file

5. Deleting Things

kubectl delete pod my-pod          # delete a specific pod
kubectl delete service my-service  # delete a specific service

Debugging and Fixing Problems

6. Checking Logs

kubectl logs my-pod
kubectl logs my-pod -c my-container

7. Running Commands Inside a Pod

kubectl exec -it my-pod -- bash

8. Accessing a Pod from Your Local Machine

kubectl port-forward my-pod 8080:80

9. Checking Resource Usage

kubectl top pod    # resource usage for each pod
kubectl top node   # usage for each node

10. Understanding Resources

kubectl explain pod
kubectl explain pod.spec

Managing Apps and Workloads

11. Rolling Out Changes

kubectl rollout status deployment/my-deployment
kubectl rollout undo deployment/my-deployment

12. Scaling Your App

kubectl scale deployment/my-deployment --replicas=5

13. Editing Configurations

kubectl edit deployment my-deployment