Unlock Hidden kubectl Tricks: Boost Your Kubernetes Workflow

kubectl is the official command-line tool for Kubernetes, enabling convenient cluster operations. This article presents several advanced kubectl usages for readers with basic Kubernetes experience.

1. Print the API version in use

# Show API interaction details, useful 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 running on a specific node

# Use field selector for node name
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
","Word","Count"); for(ind in count){ printf("%-35s: %d
",ind,count[ind]); } }'

5. Using kubectl proxy

# Start a local proxy on port 8080
KUBECONFIG=~/.kube/config-symv3 kubectl proxy -p 8080
kubectl get ns

# Proxy options
--accept-hosts='^localhost$,^127\.0\.0\.1$,^\[::1\]$'
--reject-paths='^/api/.*/pods/.*/exec,^/api/.*/pods/.*/attach'
# Disable reject paths
kubectl proxy -p 8080 --keepalive 3600s --reject-paths='' -v=9

kubectl is a powerful tool; the commands above are examples of practical tricks that can save time when debugging or performing ad‑hoc tasks, without needing to write custom client code.