Master Advanced kubectl Tricks: Boost Your Kubernetes Workflow

kubectl is the official command‑line tool for Kubernetes, enabling convenient cluster operations. This article shares several advanced kubectl usage patterns for users with basic Kubernetes experience.

1. Print the API version in use

# Print API interactions for debugging
kubectl get ns -v=9

2. Filter pods by status and delete them

kubectl get pods --all-namespaces --field-selector status.phase=Pending -o json | \
  jq '.items[] | "kubectl delete pods \(.metadata.name) -n \(.metadata.namespace)"' | \
  xargs -n 1 bash -c
# Example for Running pods
kubectl get pods --all-namespaces --field-selector status.phase=Running -o json | \
  jq '.items[] | "kubectl get pods \(.metadata.name) -o wide -n \(.metadata.namespace)"'
# Delete completed pods in a single namespace
kubectl -n default get pods | grep Completed | awk '{print $1}' | xargs kubectl -n default delete pods

3. List all pods on a specific node

kubectl get pods --all-namespaces -o wide --field-selector spec.nodeName=pve-node1

4. Count pod distribution across nodes

kubectl -n default get pods -o wide -l app="nginx" | awk '{print $7}' | \
awk '{ count[$0]++ } END { printf("%-35s: %s
","Node","Count"); for (n in count) printf("%-35s: %d
",n,count[n]); }'

5. Using kubectl proxy

# Start proxy on port 8080
KUBECONFIG=~/.kube/config-symv3 kubectl proxy -p 8080
kubectl get ns
# Adjust proxy restrictions
kubectl proxy -p 8080 --keepalive 3600s --reject-paths=''

kubectl is a powerful tool; the commands above illustrate practical ways to debug, filter, and manage resources without writing custom client code.