KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes)

📦

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1.34.1 · fedora 43
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, in arch rolling, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixpkgs unstable

💖 KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the kubernetes manual — yes, that one. this page was written by Eric Paris back in Jan 2015, and it's still out here doing the absolute most. today's episode: the API server. grab a snack, this one's a long read. 🍓

✨ NAME ✨

kube-apiserver — that's it, that's the name, no further notes, iconic behaviour honestly 👑

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

kube-apiserver [OPTIONS]

that's the whole vibe. one binary, a frankly unhinged number of options. 💅

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so the Kubernetes API server is the one that validates and configures data for the api objects — and when we say api objects we mean pods, services, replicationcontrollers, and others. yes, "and others", the manpage said it first, not me. 🙈

it also services REST operations and serves as the frontend to the cluster's shared state — the shared state that literally every other component interacts through. it's giving main character energy because it is the main character. the whole cluster is basically orbiting this thing. 🌈

✨ OPTIONS ✨

okay. deep breath. this is the big one. every single flag, no skipping, because we don't gatekeep here. 🫶

--admission-control=[] — admission happens in two phases, and the order is the drama. in phase one, only mutating admission plugins run. in phase two, only validating admission plugins run. the names in the list below might be a validating plugin, a mutating plugin, or honestly both. the order you pass them to this flag? doesn't matter, the universe sorts it out. comma-delimited list of: AlwaysAdmit, AlwaysDeny, AlwaysPullImages, CertificateApproval, CertificateSigning, CertificateSubjectRestriction, ClusterTrustBundleAttest, DefaultIngressClass, DefaultStorageClass, DefaultTolerationSeconds, DenyServiceExternalIPs, EventRateLimit, ExtendedResourceToleration, ImagePolicyWebhook, LimitPodHardAntiAffinityTopology, LimitRanger, MutatingAdmissionPolicy, MutatingAdmissionWebhook, NamespaceAutoProvision, NamespaceExists, NamespaceLifecycle, NodeDeclaredFeatureValidator, NodeRestriction, OwnerReferencesPermissionEnforcement, PersistentVolumeClaimResize, PodGroupProtection, PodNodeSelector, PodResizeValidator, PodSecurity, PodTolerationRestriction, PodTopologyLabels, Priority, ResourceQuota, RuntimeClass, ServiceAccount, StorageObjectInUseProtection, TaintNodesByCondition, ValidatingAdmissionPolicy, ValidatingAdmissionWebhook.
--admission-control-config-file="" — the file with admission control configuration. simple as that. 🎀
--advertise-address= — the IP address on which to advertise the apiserver to members of the cluster. this address must be reachable by the rest of the cluster, no pressure. if blank, the --bind-address will be used. if --bind-address is unspecified, the host's default interface will be used.
--aggregator-reject-forwarding-redirect=true — aggregator reject forwarding redirect response back to client. 💫
--allow-metric-labels=[] — the map from metric-label to value allow-list of this label. the key's format is ,. the value's format is ,... e.g. metric1,label1='v1,v2,v3', metric1,label2='v1,v2,v3' metric2,label1='v1,v2,v3'.
--allow-metric-labels-manifest="" — the path to the manifest file that contains the allow-list mapping. the format of the file is the same as the flag --allow-metric-labels, i.e.

allowListMapping:
  "metric1,label1": "value11,value12"
  "metric2,label2": ""

note that the flag --allow-metric-labels will override the manifest file. ⚠️

--allow-privileged=false — if true, allow privileged containers. [default=false]
--anonymous-auth=true — enables anonymous requests to the secure port of the API server. requests that are not rejected by another authentication method are treated as anonymous requests. anonymous requests have a username of system:anonymous, and a group name of system:unauthenticated.
--api-audiences=[] — identifiers of the API. the service account token authenticator will validate that tokens used against the API are bound to at least one of these audiences. if the --service-account-issuer flag is configured and this flag is not, this field defaults to a single element list containing the issuer URL.
--apiserver-count=1 — the number of apiservers running in the cluster, must be a positive number. (in use when --endpoint-reconciler-type=master-count is enabled.)
--audit-log-batch-buffer-size=10000 — the size of the buffer to store events before batching and writing. only used in batch mode.
--audit-log-batch-max-size=1 — the maximum size of a batch. only used in batch mode.
--audit-log-batch-max-wait=0s — the amount of time to wait before force writing the batch that hadn't reached the max size. only used in batch mode.
--audit-log-batch-throttle-burst=0 — maximum number of requests sent at the same moment if ThrottleQPS was not utilized before. only used in batch mode.
--audit-log-batch-throttle-enable=false — whether batching throttling is enabled. only used in batch mode.
--audit-log-batch-throttle-qps=0 — maximum average number of batches per second. only used in batch mode.
--audit-log-compress=false — if set, the rotated log files will be compressed using gzip. 🗜️
--audit-log-format="json" — format of saved audits. "legacy" indicates 1-line text format for each event. "json" indicates structured json format. known formats are legacy,json.
--audit-log-maxage=366 — the maximum number of days to retain old audit log files based on the timestamp encoded in their filename. setting a value of 0 means old audit log files are not removed based on age.
--audit-log-maxbackup=100 — the maximum number of old audit log files to retain. setting a value of 0 will mean there's no restriction on the number of files.
--audit-log-maxsize=100 — the maximum size in megabytes of the audit log file before it gets rotated. setting to 0 disables rotation (not recommended). 💀
--audit-log-mode="blocking" — strategy for sending audit events. Blocking indicates sending events should block server responses. Batch causes the backend to buffer and write events asynchronously. known modes are batch,blocking,blocking-strict.
--audit-log-path="" — if set, all requests coming to the apiserver will be logged to this file. '-' means standard out.
--audit-log-truncate-enabled=false — whether event and batch truncating is enabled.
--audit-log-truncate-max-batch-size=10485760 — maximum size of the batch sent to the underlying backend. actual serialized size can be several hundreds of bytes greater. if a batch exceeds this limit, it is split into several batches of smaller size.
--audit-log-truncate-max-event-size=102400 — maximum size of the audit event sent to the underlying backend. if the size of an event is greater than this number, first request and response are removed, and if this doesn't reduce the size enough, event is discarded.
--audit-log-version="audit.k8s.io/v1" — API group and version used for serializing audit events written to log.
--audit-policy-file="" — path to the file that defines the audit policy configuration.
--audit-webhook-batch-buffer-size=10000 — the size of the buffer to store events before batching and writing. only used in batch mode.
--audit-webhook-batch-initial-backoff=10s — the amount of time to wait before retrying the first failed request.
--audit-webhook-batch-max-size=400 — the maximum size of a batch. only used in batch mode.
--audit-webhook-batch-max-wait=30s — the amount of time to wait before force writing the batch that hadn't reached the max size. only used in batch mode.
--audit-webhook-batch-throttle-burst=15 — maximum number of requests sent at the same moment if ThrottleQPS was not utilized before. only used in batch mode.
--audit-webhook-batch-throttle-enable=true — whether batching throttling is enabled. only used in batch mode.
--audit-webhook-batch-throttle-qps=10 — maximum average number of batches per second. only used in batch mode.
--audit-webhook-config-file="" — path to a kubeconfig formatted file that defines the audit webhook configuration.
--audit-webhook-initial-backoff=10s — the amount of time to wait before retrying the first failed request.
--audit-webhook-mode="batch" — strategy for sending audit events. Blocking indicates sending events should block server responses. Batch causes the backend to buffer and write events asynchronously. known modes are batch,blocking,blocking-strict.
--audit-webhook-truncate-enabled=false — whether event and batch truncating is enabled.
--audit-webhook-truncate-max-batch-size=10485760 — maximum size of the batch sent to the underlying backend. actual serialized size can be several hundreds of bytes greater. if a batch exceeds this limit, it is split into several batches of smaller size.
--audit-webhook-truncate-max-event-size=102400 — maximum size of the audit event sent to the underlying backend. if the size of an event is greater than this number, first request and response are removed, and if this doesn't reduce the size enough, event is discarded.
--audit-webhook-version="audit.k8s.io/v1" — API group and version used for serializing audit events written to webhook.
--authentication-config="" — file with Authentication Configuration to configure the JWT Token authenticator or the anonymous authenticator. this flag is mutually exclusive with the --oidc-* flags if the file configures the JWT Token authenticator. this flag is also mutually exclusive with --anonymous-auth if the file configures the Anonymous authenticator. 🚨
--authentication-token-webhook-cache-ttl=2m0s — the duration to cache responses from the webhook token authenticator.
--authentication-token-webhook-config-file="" — file with webhook configuration for token authentication in kubeconfig format. the API server will query the remote service to determine authentication for bearer tokens.
--authentication-token-webhook-version="v1beta1" — the API version of the authentication.k8s.io TokenReview to send to and expect from the webhook.
--authorization-config="" — file with Authorization Configuration to configure the authorizer chain. this flag is mutually exclusive with the other --authorization-mode and --authorization-webhook-* flags. 🙅♀️
--authorization-mode=[] — ordered list of plug-ins to do authorization on secure port. defaults to AlwaysAllow if --authorization-config is not used. comma-delimited list of: AlwaysAllow,AlwaysDeny,ABAC,Webhook,RBAC,Node.
--authorization-policy-file="" — file with authorization policy in json line by line format, used with --authorization-mode=ABAC, on the secure port.
--authorization-webhook-cache-authorized-ttl=5m0s — the duration to cache 'authorized' responses from the webhook authorizer.
--authorization-webhook-cache-unauthorized-ttl=30s — the duration to cache 'unauthorized' responses from the webhook authorizer.
--authorization-webhook-config-file="" — file with webhook configuration in kubeconfig format, used with --authorization-mode=Webhook. the API server will query the remote service to determine access on the API server's secure port.
--authorization-webhook-version="v1beta1" — the API version of the authorization.k8s.io SubjectAccessReview to send to and expect from the webhook.

and bestie… that's literally only the first chunk of the flags. the alphabet is long and this server has opinions about all of it. more coming. 🦋

--bind-address=0.0.0.0 — the IP address your apiserver listens on for the --secure-port port 🎀. Whatever interface(s) you hook up here gotta be reachable by the rest of the cluster and by your CLI/web clients, no cap. If it's blank, or you hand it an unspecified address (0.0.0.0 or ::), then literally all interfaces and IP address families get used. All of them. Periodt.
--cert-dir="/var/run/kubernetes" — where the TLS certs live 📁. But heads up bestie: if you already gave it --tls-cert-file and --tls-private-key-file, this flag gets straight-up ignored. It's giving backup plan energy. 💅
--client-ca-file="" — set this and any request rocking a client certificate signed by one of the authorities inside client-ca-file gets authenticated with an identity matching the CommonName of that client certificate. That's the whole vibe. 🪪
--contention-profiling=false — enables block profiling, if profiling is already enabled. Conditional queen. 👑
--coordinated-leadership-lease-duration=15s — how long the lease lasts for Coordinated Leader Election. ⏳
--coordinated-leadership-renew-deadline=10s — the deadline for renewing a coordinated leader election lease. Don't be late bestie. 😭
--coordinated-leadership-retry-period=2s — how often it retries renewing that coordinated leader election lease. 🔁
--cors-allowed-origins=[] — a comma-separated list of allowed origins for CORS ✨. An allowed origin can be a regular expression so you can do subdomain matching. If this list is empty, CORS simply will not be enabled. Also pls pls pls make sure each expression matches the entire hostname — anchor the start with '^' or include the '//' prefix, and anchor the end with '$' or include the ':' port separator suffix. Examples of valid expressions are '//example.com(:|$)' and '^https://example.com(:|$)'. Slay responsibly. 🦋
--debug-socket-path="" — use an unprotected (no authn/authz 😳) unix-domain socket for profiling, at whatever path you give it. It's giving "no security, we die like men."
--default-not-ready-toleration-seconds=300 — the tolerationSeconds of the toleration for notReady:NoExecute that gets added by default to every pod that doesn't already have a toleration like that. ⭐
--default-unreachable-toleration-seconds=300 — same deal but for unreachable:NoExecute: the tolerationSeconds of the toleration added by default to every pod that doesn't already have one. 💜
--default-watch-cache-size=100 — the default watch cache size 📦. If it's zero, the watch cache gets disabled for resources that don't have a default watch size set.
--delete-collection-workers=1 — how many workers get spawned for the DeleteCollection call 🧹. These exist to speed up namespace cleanup, so like, more workers = faster sweeping.
--disable-admission-plugins=[] — the admission plugins you wanna turn off, even though they're in the default enabled plugins list. Those defaults are:
- NamespaceLifecycle, LimitRanger, ServiceAccount, TaintNodesByCondition, PodSecurity, Priority, DefaultTolerationSeconds, DefaultStorageClass, StorageObjectInUseProtection, PodGroupProtection, PersistentVolumeClaimResize, RuntimeClass, CertificateApproval, CertificateSigning, ClusterTrustBundleAttest, CertificateSubjectRestriction, DefaultIngressClass, PodTopologyLabels, NodeDeclaredFeatureValidator, PodResizeValidator, MutatingAdmissionPolicy, MutatingAdmissionWebhook, ValidatingAdmissionPolicy, ValidatingAdmissionWebhook, ResourceQuota

And the full comma-delimited list of admission plugins you can name is:

AlwaysAdmit, AlwaysDeny, AlwaysPullImages, CertificateApproval, CertificateSigning, CertificateSubjectRestriction, ClusterTrustBundleAttest, DefaultIngressClass, DefaultStorageClass, DefaultTolerationSeconds, DenyServiceExternalIPs, EventRateLimit, ExtendedResourceToleration, ImagePolicyWebhook, LimitPodHardAntiAffinityTopology, LimitRanger, MutatingAdmissionPolicy, MutatingAdmissionWebhook, NamespaceAutoProvision, NamespaceExists, NamespaceLifecycle, NodeDeclaredFeatureValidator, NodeRestriction, OwnerReferencesPermissionEnforcement, PersistentVolumeClaimResize, PodGroupProtection, PodNodeSelector, PodResizeValidator, PodSecurity, PodTolerationRestriction, PodTopologyLabels, Priority, ResourceQuota, RuntimeClass, ServiceAccount, StorageObjectInUseProtection, TaintNodesByCondition, ValidatingAdmissionPolicy, ValidatingAdmissionWebhook

The order of plugins in this flag does not matter — it's not that serious. 🙈

--disable-http2-serving=false — if true, HTTP2 serving gets disabled [default=false]. Simple as. 💅
--disabled-metrics=[] — the escape hatch for misbehaving metrics 😤. You must hand over the fully qualified metric name to disable it. Disclaimer, read it twice: disabling metrics is higher in precedence than showing hidden metrics. So if you disable it, it's gone gone. 💀
--egress-selector-config-file="" — file with apiserver egress selector configuration. 🚪
--emulated-version=[] — the versions that different components emulate their capabilities (APIs, features, ...) of. If you set it, the component emulates the behavior of this version instead of the underlying binary version ✨. Version format can only be major.minor, for example: '--emulated-version=wardle=1.2,kube=1.31'. Options are: kube=1.34..1.37(default:1.37). If the component isn't specified, it defaults to "kube". 🎀
--emulation-forward-compatible=false — if true, then for any beta+ APIs enabled by default or by --runtime-config at the emulation version, their future versions with higher priority/stability get auto enabled even if they were introduced after the emulation version 🌈. It can only be set to true if the emulation version is lower than the binary version. No shortcuts bestie.
--enable-admission-plugins=[] — the admission plugins you wanna turn on in addition to the default enabled ones. Those defaults are:
- NamespaceLifecycle, LimitRanger, ServiceAccount, TaintNodesByCondition, PodSecurity, Priority, DefaultTolerationSeconds, DefaultStorageClass, StorageObjectInUseProtection, PodGroupProtection, PersistentVolumeClaimResize, RuntimeClass, CertificateApproval, CertificateSigning, ClusterTrustBundleAttest, CertificateSubjectRestriction, DefaultIngressClass, PodTopologyLabels, NodeDeclaredFeatureValidator, PodResizeValidator, MutatingAdmissionPolicy, MutatingAdmissionWebhook, ValidatingAdmissionPolicy, ValidatingAdmissionWebhook, ResourceQuota

And the full comma-delimited list of admission plugins you can name is:

AlwaysAdmit, AlwaysDeny, AlwaysPullImages, CertificateApproval, CertificateSigning, CertificateSubjectRestriction, ClusterTrustBundleAttest, DefaultIngressClass, DefaultStorageClass, DefaultTolerationSeconds, DenyServiceExternalIPs, EventRateLimit, ExtendedResourceToleration, ImagePolicyWebhook, LimitPodHardAntiAffinityTopology, LimitRanger, MutatingAdmissionPolicy, MutatingAdmissionWebhook, NamespaceAutoProvision, NamespaceExists, NamespaceLifecycle, NodeDeclaredFeatureValidator, NodeRestriction, OwnerReferencesPermissionEnforcement, PersistentVolumeClaimResize, PodGroupProtection, PodNodeSelector, PodResizeValidator, PodSecurity, PodTolerationRestriction, PodTopologyLabels, Priority, ResourceQuota, RuntimeClass, ServiceAccount, StorageObjectInUseProtection, TaintNodesByCondition, ValidatingAdmissionPolicy, ValidatingAdmissionWebhook

The order of plugins in this flag does not matter. Zero stress. 🌸

--enable-aggregator-routing=false — turns on aggregator routing requests to endpoints IP rather than cluster IP. 🔀
--enable-bootstrap-token-auth=false — enable this to allow secrets of type 'bootstrap.kubernetes.io/token' in the 'kube-system' namespace to be used for TLS bootstrapping authentication. 🎫
--enable-garbage-collector=true — enables the generic garbage collector 🗑️. It MUST be synced with the corresponding flag of the kube-controller-manager. Not optional, not a suggestion, they have to match.
--enable-logs-handler=false — if true, install a /logs handler for the apiserver logs. 📜
--enable-priority-and-fairness=true — if true, replace the max-in-flight handler with an enhanced one that queues and dispatches with priority and fairness. VIP treatment for your requests. 👑
--encryption-provider-config="" — the file containing configuration for encryption providers to be used for storing secrets in etcd. 🔐
--encryption-provider-config-automatic-reload=false — determines if the file set by --encryption-provider-config should automatically reload if the disk contents change. ⚠️ But setting this to true disables the ability to uniquely identify distinct KMS plugins via the API server healthz endpoints. Trade-offs, bestie.
--endpoint-reconciler-type="lease" — pick an endpoint reconciler: master-count, lease, or none. And master-count is deprecated and will be removed in a future version, so like, don't get attached. 💀
--etcd-cafile="" — SSL Certificate Authority file used to secure etcd communication. 🔒
--etcd-certfile="" — SSL certification file used to secure etcd communication. 📄
--etcd-compaction-interval=5m0s — the interval of compaction requests. If it's 0, the compaction request from apiserver is disabled. 🧼
--etcd-count-metric-poll-period=1m0s — how often it polls etcd for the number of resources per type. 0 disables the metric collection. 📊
--etcd-db-metric-poll-interval=30s — the interval of requests to poll etcd and update the metric. 0 disables the metric collection. ⏱️
--etcd-healthcheck-timeout=2s — the timeout to use when checking etcd health. 🩺
--etcd-keyfile="" — SSL key file used to secure etcd communication. 🗝️
--etcd-prefix="/registry" — the prefix to prepend to all resource paths in etcd. 🏷️
--etcd-readycheck-timeout=2s — the timeout to use when checking etcd readiness. ✅
--etcd-servers=[] — list of etcd servers to connect with (scheme://ip:port), comma separated. 🔌
--etcd-servers-overrides=[] — per-resource etcd servers overrides, comma separated. The individual override format is: group/resource#servers, where servers are URLs, semicolon separated. Note that this applies only to resources compiled into this server binary. e.g. "/pods#http://etcd4:2379;http://etcd5:2379,/events#http://etcd6:2379". Custom routing, we love to see it. 🌈
--event-ttl=1h0m0s — how long events get retained. 🗓️
--external-hostname="" — the hostname to use when generating externalized URLs for this master (e.g. Swagger API Docs or OpenID Discovery). 🌐
--feature-gates= — bestie. okay. this is the big one 💅 it's a comma-separated list of component:key=value pairs that describe feature gates for alpha/experimental features across different components. If you don't name a component, it just defaults to "kube". You can invoke this flag over and over (it stacks!), and here's the vibe:

--feature-gates 'wardle:featureA=true,wardle:featureB=false' --feature-gates 'kube:featureC=true'

Options are: 👑

kube:APIResponseCompression=true|false — BETA, default true ✨
kube:APIServerIdentity=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:APIServerWebhookAuthenticationToken=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:APIServingWithRoutine=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:AllAlpha=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:AllBeta=true|false — BETA, default false
kube:AllowParsingUserUIDFromCertAuth=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:AllowUnsafeMalformedObjectDeletion=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:AtomicFIFO=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:AtomicWriteVolumeUserFields=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:AuthorizePodWebsocketUpgradeCreatePermission=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:CBORServingAndStorage=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:CPUManagerPolicyAlphaOptions=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:CPUManagerPolicyBetaOptions=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:CRDObservedGenerationTracking=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:CRIListStreaming=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:CSIVolumeHealth=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:ClearingNominatedNodeNameAfterBinding=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ClientsAllowCARotation=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ClientsAllowCBOR=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:ClientsAllowTLSCacheGC=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ClientsPreferCBOR=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:CloudControllerManagerWatchBasedRoutesReconciliation=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:CloudControllerManagerWebhook=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:ComponentFlagz=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ComponentStatusz=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:CompositePodGroup=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:ConcurrentWatchObjectDecode=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ConsistentListFromCacheSkipTimeoutFallback=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:ConstrainedImpersonation=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ContainerCheckpoint=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ContainerRestartRules=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ContainerStopSignals=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:ContextualLogging=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ControllerManagerReleaseLeaderElectionLockOnExit=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:CoordinatedLeaderElection=true|false — BETA, default false
kube:CrossNamespaceVolumeDataSource=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:DRAConsumableCapacity=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:DRADerivedAttributes=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:DRADeviceBindingConditions=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:DRADeviceCompatibilityGroups=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:DRAFractionalCapacityRange=true|false — BETA, default false, or DRAFractionalCapacityRange=true|false BETA, default true if --min-compatibility-version>=1.37 🦋
kube:DRAListTypeAttributes=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:DRANodeAllocatableResources=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:DRAOptionalNodeOperations=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:DRAPartitionableDevices=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:DRAPartitionableDevicesType=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:DRAResourceClaimGranularStatusAuthorization=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:DRAResourcePoolStatus=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:DRASchedulerFilterTimeout=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:DRAWorkloadResourceClaims=true|false — BETA, default false
kube:DeclarativeValidationBeta=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:DefaultPodSysctls=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:DeploymentReplicaSetTerminatingReplicas=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:DetectCacheInconsistency=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:EmptyDirVolumeMode=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:EnvFiles=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:EtcdRangeStream=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:EventedPLEG=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:EvictionRequestAPI=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:ExcludeAdmissionWebhookVirtualResources=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ExtendWebSocketsToKubelet=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:GRPCContainerProbeTLS=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:GenericWorkload=true|false — BETA, default false
kube:GracefulNodeShutdown=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:GracefulNodeShutdownBasedOnPodPriority=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:H2CContainerProbe=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:HPAGeneration=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:HPAOptimizedSelectorStore=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:HPAScaleToZero=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:HugepageAwareEviction=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ImageVolumeWithDigest=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:InOrderInformersBatchProcess=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:InPlacePodLevelResourcesVerticalScaling=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:InPlacePodVerticalScalingExclusiveCPUs=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:InPlacePodVerticalScalingExclusiveMemory=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:InPlacePodVerticalScalingMemoryBackedVolumes=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:InPlacePodVerticalScalingSchedulerPreemption=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:InterPodAffinityHostnameFastPath=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:KubeProxyNFTablesLocalhostNodePorts=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:KubeletAllocatedPodsEndpoint=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:KubeletCrashLoopBackOffMax=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:KubeletEnsureSecretPulledImages=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:KubeletInUserNamespace=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:KubeletSeparateDiskGC=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:KubeletServiceAccountTokenForCredentialProviders=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ListFromCacheSnapshot=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:LocalStorageCapacityIsolationFSQuotaMonitoring=true|false — BETA, default false
kube:LoggingAlphaOptions=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:LoggingBetaOptions=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ManifestBasedAdmissionControlConfig=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:MatchLabelKeysInPodTopologySpread=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:MatchLabelKeysInPodTopologySpreadSelectorMerge=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:MaxUnavailableStatefulSet=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:MemoryQoS=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:MutablePVNodeAffinity=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:MutablePodResourcesForSuspendedJobs=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:MutableSchedulingDirectivesForSuspendedJobs=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:NFTablesNetlink=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:NativeHistograms=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:NodeControllerLeaseCircuitBreaker=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:NodeLifecycleConditions=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:NominatedNodeNameForExpectation=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:OpenAPIEnums=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:OpportunisticBatching=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:PersistentVolumeClaimUnusedSinceTime=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:PodAndContainerStatsFromCRI=true|false — BETA, default false
kube:PodDeletionCost=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:PodGroupPreemptionPolicy=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:PodLevelResourceManagers=true|false — BETA, default false
kube:PodLevelResources=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:PodLevelResourcesFixDefaulting=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:PodLevelResourcesFixKubeletQOSClass=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:PodLogsQuerySplitStreams=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:PodTopologyLabelsAdmission=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:PodsAPI=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:PortForwardWebsockets=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:QOSReserved=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:ReduceDefaultCrashLoopBackOffDecay=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:ReloadKubeletClientCAFile=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ReloadKubeletServerCertificateFile=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:RemoteRequestHeaderUID=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ResourceHealthStatus=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ResourceHealthStatusMessage=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:RestartAllContainersOnContainerExits=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:RotateKubeletServerCertificate=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:RuntimeClassInImageCriApi=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:SchedulerAsyncAPICalls=true|false — BETA, default false
kube:SchedulerAsyncPreemption=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:SchedulerPopFromBackoffQ=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:SchedulerPreQueueingHints=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:ServiceAccountNodeAudienceRestriction=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:ShardedListAndWatch=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:SizeBasedListCostEstimate=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:StaleControllerConsistencyDaemonSet=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:StaleControllerConsistencyHPA=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:StaleControllerConsistencyJob=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:StaleControllerConsistencyReplicaSet=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:StaleControllerConsistencyStatefulSet=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:StatefulSetRecreateStrategy=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:StatefulSetSemanticRevisionComparison=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:StorageCapacityScoring=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:StorageVersionAPI=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:StorageVersionHash=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:StrictIPCIDRValidation=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:StructuredAuthenticationConfigurationEgressSelector=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:StructuredAuthenticationConfigurationJWKSMetrics=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:TaintTolerationComparisonOperators=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:TokenRequestServiceAccountUIDValidation=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:TopologyAwareWorkloadScheduling=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:TopologyManagerPolicyAlphaOptions=true|false — ALPHA, default false
kube:TopologyManagerPolicyBetaOptions=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:TranslateStreamCloseWebsocketRequests=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:UnauthenticatedHTTP2DOSMitigation=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:UnknownVersionInteroperabilityProxy=true|false — BETA, default true
kube:UnlockWhileProcessingFIFO=true|false — BETA, 😭

ngl bestie the page literally cuts off right there mid-line — (BETA - and then nothing. The vibe check failed, the list just… ends. Not me crying over a truncated manpage 💀 keep reading tho, there's more coming ✨

…and the last gate's line wrapped over, so default=true) — anyway, bestie, the feature-gate parade does NOT stop, it just keeps serving:

kube:UserNamespacesHostNetworkSupport=true|false — ALPHA, default false 💅
kube:VolumeBindMountOptions=true|false — ALPHA, default false 🫶
kube:VolumeLimitScaling=true|false — BETA, default true ✨
kube:WatchList=true|false — BETA, default true 👀
kube:WatchListClient=true|false — BETA, default true 🦋
kube:WatchListCompression=true|false — BETA, default true 🗜️
kube:WebhookRoundTripLoadBalancing=true|false — BETA, default true ⚖️
kube:WindowsCPUAndMemoryAffinity=true|false — ALPHA, default false 🪟
kube:WindowsGracefulNodeShutdown=true|false — BETA, default true 🌙
kube:WorkloadWithJob=true|false — ALPHA, default false 🧚

--goaway-chance=0 — okay so HTTP/2 clients can lowkey get stuck on one single apiserver, and that's the vibe we're fixing. This randomly closes a connection (GOAWAY). The client's other in-flight requests are totally unaffected, and the client reconnects — probably landing on a different apiserver after it goes through the load balancer again. This argument sets the fraction of requests that get sent a GOAWAY. Clusters with single apiservers, or which don't use a load balancer, should NOT enable this. Min is 0 (off), Max is .02 (1/50 requests); .001 (1/1000) is a recommended starting point. 🚪
-h, --help=false — help for kube-apiserver 🥺
--http2-max-streams-per-connection=0 — the limit the server gives to clients for the maximum number of streams in an HTTP/2 connection. Zero means to use golang's default. 🌀
--kubelet-certificate-authority="" — path to a cert file for the certificate authority. 📜
--kubelet-client-certificate="" — path to a client cert file for TLS. 🪪
--kubelet-client-key="" — path to a client key file for TLS. 🔑
--kubelet-port=10250 — DEPRECATED: kubelet port. 💀
--kubelet-preferred-address-types=[Hostname,InternalDNS,InternalIP,ExternalDNS,ExternalIP] — list of the preferred NodeAddressTypes to use for kubelet connections. 📇
--kubelet-read-only-port=10255 — DEPRECATED: kubelet read only port. 💀
--kubelet-timeout=5s — timeout for kubelet operations. ⏳
--kubernetes-service-node-port=0 — if non-zero, the Kubernetes master service (which apiserver creates/maintains) will be of type NodePort, using this as the value of the port. If zero, the Kubernetes master service will be of type ClusterIP. 🎯
--lease-reuse-duration-seconds=60 — the time in seconds that each lease is reused. A lower value could avoid a large number of objects reusing the same lease. Notice that a too small value may cause performance problems at storage layer. 🫠
--livez-grace-period=0s — this option represents the maximum amount of time it should take for apiserver to complete its startup sequence and become live. From apiserver's start time to when this amount of time has elapsed, /livez will assume that unfinished post-start hooks will complete successfully and therefore return true. 💚
--log-flush-frequency=5s — maximum number of seconds between log flushes. 🚽
--log-text-info-buffer-size=0 — [Alpha] in text format with split output streams, the info messages can be buffered for a while to increase performance. The default value of zero bytes disables buffering. The size can be specified as number of bytes (512), multiples of 1000 (1K), multiples of 1024 (2Ki), or powers of those (3M, 4G, 5Mi, 6Gi). Enable the LoggingAlphaOptions feature gate to use this. 🧺
--log-text-split-stream=false — [Alpha] in text format, write error messages to stderr and info messages to stdout. The default is to write a single stream to stdout. Enable the LoggingAlphaOptions feature gate to use this. 🌊
--logging-format="text" — sets the log format. Permitted formats: "text". 📝
--max-connection-bytes-per-sec=0 — if non-zero, throttle each user connection to this number of bytes/sec. Currently only applies to long-running requests. 🐌
--max-mutating-requests-inflight=200 — this and --max-requests-inflight are summed to determine the server's total concurrency limit (which must be positive) if --enable-priority-and-fairness is true. Otherwise, this flag limits the maximum number of mutating requests in flight, or a zero value disables the limit completely. 🚦
--max-requests-inflight=400 — this and --max-mutating-requests-inflight are summed to determine the server's total concurrency limit (which must be positive) if --enable-priority-and-fairness is true. Otherwise, this flag limits the maximum number of non-mutating requests in flight, or a zero value disables the limit completely. 🚥
--min-compatibility-version=[] — the min version of control plane components the server should be compatible with. Must be less or equal to the emulated-version. Version format could only be major.minor, for example: '--min-compatibility-version=wardle=1.2,kube=1.31'. Options are: kube=1.34..1.37(default:1.36) If the component is not specified, defaults to "kube". 🤝
--min-request-timeout=1800 — an optional field indicating the minimum number of seconds a handler must keep a request open before timing it out. Currently only honored by the watch request handler, which picks a randomized value above this number as the connection timeout, to spread out load. 🎲
--oidc-ca-file="" — if set, the OpenID server's certificate will be verified by one of the authorities in the oidc-ca-file, otherwise the host's root CA set will be used. 🏛️
--oidc-client-id="" — the client ID for the OpenID Connect client, must be set if oidc-issuer-url is set. 🆔
--oidc-groups-claim="" — if provided, the name of a custom OpenID Connect claim for specifying user groups. The claim value is expected to be a string or array of strings. This flag is experimental, please see the authentication documentation for further details. 👥
--oidc-groups-prefix="" — if provided, all groups will be prefixed with this value to prevent conflicts with other authentication strategies. 🏷️
--oidc-issuer-url="" — the URL of the OpenID issuer, only HTTPS scheme will be accepted. If set, it will be used to verify the OIDC JSON Web Token (JWT). 🔐
--oidc-required-claim= — a key=value pair that describes a required claim in the ID Token. If set, the claim is verified to be present in the ID Token with a matching value. Repeat this flag to specify multiple claims. 📌
--oidc-signing-algs=[RS256] — comma-separated list of allowed JOSE asymmetric signing algorithms. JWTs with a supported 'alg' header values are: RS256, RS384, RS512, ES256, ES384, ES512, PS256, PS384, PS512. Values are defined by RFC 7518 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7518#section-3.1. ✍️
--oidc-username-claim="sub" — the OpenID claim to use as the user name. Note that claims other than the default ('sub') is not guaranteed to be unique and immutable. This flag is experimental, please see the authentication documentation for further details. 🙋
--oidc-username-prefix="" — if provided, all usernames will be prefixed with this value. If not provided, username claims other than 'email' are prefixed by the issuer URL to avoid clashes. To skip any prefixing, provide the value '-'. ✂️
--peer-advertise-ip="" — if set and the UnknownVersionInteroperabilityProxy feature gate is enabled, this IP will be used by peer kube-apiservers to proxy requests to this kube-apiserver when the request cannot be handled by the peer due to version skew between the kube-apiservers. This flag is only used in clusters configured with multiple kube-apiservers for high availability. 🛰️
--peer-advertise-port="" — if set and the UnknownVersionInteroperabilityProxy feature gate is enabled, this port will be used by peer kube-apiservers to proxy requests to this kube-apiserver when the request cannot be handled by the peer due to version skew between the kube-apiservers. This flag is only used in clusters configured with multiple kube-apiservers for high availability. 🔌
--peer-ca-file="" — if set and the UnknownVersionInteroperabilityProxy feature gate is enabled, this file will be used to verify serving certificates of peer kube-apiservers. This flag is only used in clusters configured with multiple kube-apiservers for high availability. 🧾
--permit-address-sharing=false — if true, SO_REUSEADDR will be used when binding the port. This allows binding to wildcard IPs like 0.0.0.0 and specific IPs in parallel, and it avoids waiting for the kernel to release sockets in TIME_WAIT state. [default=false] 🫂
--permit-port-sharing=false — if true, SO_REUSEPORT will be used when binding the port, which allows more than one instance to bind on the same address and port. [default=false] 👯
--profiling=true — enable profiling via web interface host:port/debug/pprof/. 📈
--proxy-client-cert-file="" — client certificate used to prove the identity of the aggregator or kube-apiserver when it must call out during a request. This includes proxying requests to a user api-server and calling out to webhook admission plugins. It is expected that this cert includes a signature from the CA in the --requestheader-client-ca-file flag. That CA is published in the 'extension-apiserver-authentication' configmap in the kube-system namespace. Components receiving calls from kube-aggregator should use that CA to perform their half of the mutual TLS verification. 📇
--proxy-client-key-file="" — private key for the client certificate used to prove the identity of the aggregator or kube-apiserver when it must call out during a request. This includes proxying requests to a user api-server and calling out to webhook admission plugins. 🗝️
--request-timeout=1m0s — an optional field indicating the duration a handler must keep a request open before timing it out. This is the default request timeout for requests but may be overridden by flags such as --min-request-timeout for specific types of requests. ⌛
--requestheader-allowed-names=[] — list of client certificate common names to allow to provide usernames in headers specified by --requestheader-username-headers. If empty, any client certificate validated by the authorities in --requestheader-client-ca-file is allowed. 📛
--requestheader-client-ca-file="" — root certificate bundle to use to verify client certificates on incoming requests before trusting usernames in headers specified by --requestheader-username-headers. WARNING: generally do not depend on authorization being already done for incoming requests. ⚠️
--requestheader-extra-headers-prefix=[] — list of request header prefixes to inspect. X-Remote-Extra- is suggested. 🔍
--requestheader-group-headers=[] — list of request headers to inspect for groups. X-Remote-Group is suggested. 👨👩👧
--requestheader-uid-headers=[] — list of request headers to inspect for UIDs. X-Remote-Uid is suggested. Requires the RemoteRequestHeaderUID feature to be enabled. 🪪
--requestheader-username-headers=[] — bestie, this is the list of request headers the apiserver goes digging through to find usernames. X-Remote-User is the common one, iykyk 💅
--runtime-config= — a whole set of key=value pairs that turn built-in APIs on or off, like a vibe check for your API surface. The supported options are:
- v1=true|false for the core API group
- /=true|false for a specific API group and version (e.g. apps/v1=true)
- api/all=true|false controls all API versions
- api/ga=true|false controls all API versions of the form v[0-9]+
- api/beta=true|false controls all API versions of the form v[0-9]+beta[0-9]+
- api/alpha=true|false controls all API versions of the form v[0-9]+alpha[0-9]+
- api/legacy is deprecated, and will be removed in a future version 😭
--runtime-config-emulation-forward-compatible=false — if true, APIs identified by group/version that are enabled in the --runtime-config flag get installed even if they were introduced after the emulation version. If false, the server would fail to start if any APIs identified by group/version enabled in --runtime-config were introduced after the emulation version. Can only be set to true if the emulation version is lower than the binary version. Rules are rules, bestie ✨
--secure-port=6443 — the port serving HTTPS with authentication and authorization 🎀 it cannot be switched off with 0. Like, don't even try.
--service-account-extend-token-expiration=true — turns on projected service account expiration extension during token generation, which helps with the safe transition from legacy token to the bound service account token feature. If this flag is enabled, admission injected tokens would be extended up to 1 year to prevent unexpected failure during transition, ignoring the value of service-account-max-token-expiration. 🫶
--service-account-issuer=[] — the identifier of the service account token issuer. The issuer will assert this identifier in the "iss" claim of issued tokens. This value is a string or URI. If this option is not a valid URI per the OpenID Discovery 1.0 spec, the ServiceAccountIssuerDiscovery feature will remain disabled, even if the feature gate is set to true. It is highly recommended that this value comply with the OpenID spec: https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-discovery-1_0.html. In practice, this means that service-account-issuer must be an https URL. It is also highly recommended that this URL be capable of serving OpenID discovery documents at {service-account-issuer}/.well-known/openid-configuration. When this flag is specified multiple times, the first is used to generate tokens and all are used to determine which issuers are accepted. 👑
--service-account-jwks-uri="" — overrides the URI for the JSON Web Key Set in the discovery doc served at /.well-known/openid-configuration. This flag is useful if the discovery doc and key set are served to relying parties from a URL other than the API server's external (as auto-detected or overridden with external-hostname). 🌸
--service-account-key-file=[] — file containing PEM-encoded x509 RSA or ECDSA private or public keys, used to verify ServiceAccount tokens. The specified file can contain multiple keys, and the flag can be specified multiple times with different files. If unspecified, --tls-private-key-file is used. Must be specified when --service-account-signing-key-file is provided ⚠️
--service-account-lookup=true — if true, validate that ServiceAccount tokens exist in etcd as part of authentication. 💅
--service-account-max-token-expiration=0s — the maximum validity duration of a token created by the service account token issuer. If an otherwise valid TokenRequest with a validity duration larger than this value is requested, a token will be issued with a validity duration of this value. ✨
--service-account-signing-endpoint="" — path to socket where an external JWT signer is listening. This flag is mutually exclusive with --service-account-signing-key-file and --service-account-key-file. Requires enabling feature gate (ExternalServiceAccountTokenSigner). 🦋
--service-account-signing-key-file="" — path to the file that contains the current private key of the service account token issuer. The issuer will sign issued ID tokens with this private key. 🔥
--service-cluster-ip-range="" — a CIDR notation IP range from which to assign service cluster IPs. This must not overlap with any IP ranges assigned to nodes or pods. Max of two dual-stack CIDRs is allowed. 👑
--service-node-port-range=30000-32767 — a port range to reserve for services with NodePort visibility. This must not overlap with the ephemeral port range on nodes. Example: '30000-32767'. Inclusive at both ends of the range. 🎀
--show-hidden-metrics-for-version="" — the previous version for which you want to show hidden metrics. Only the previous minor version is meaningful, other values will not be allowed. The format is .<minor>, e.g.: '1.16'. The purpose of this format is make sure you have the opportunity to notice if the next release hides additional metrics, rather than being surprised when they are permanently removed in the release after that. 😭
--shutdown-delay-duration=0s — time to delay the termination. During that time the server keeps serving requests normally. The endpoints /healthz and /livez will return success, but /readyz immediately returns failure. Graceful termination starts after this delay has elapsed. This can be used to allow a load balancer to stop sending traffic to this server. 🌈
--shutdown-send-retry-after=false — if true the HTTP Server will continue listening until all non long running request(s) in flight have been drained. During this window all incoming requests will be rejected with a status code 429 and a 'Retry-After' response header, and in addition a 'Connection: close' response header is set in order to tear down the TCP connection when idle. 💅
--shutdown-watch-termination-grace-period=0s — this option, if set, represents the maximum amount of grace period the apiserver will wait for active watch request(s) to drain during the graceful server shutdown window. 🫶
--storage-backend="" — the storage backend for persistence. Options: 'etcd3' (default). 💜
--storage-initialization-timeout=1m0s — maximum amount of time to wait for storage initialization before declaring apiserver ready. Defaults to 1m. ⏳
--storage-media-type="application/vnd.kubernetes.protobuf" — the media type to use to store objects in storage. Some resources or storage backends may only support a specific media type and will ignore this setting. Supported media types: [application/json, application/yaml, application/vnd.kubernetes.protobuf]. 🎀
--strict-transport-security-directives=[] — list of directives for HSTS, comma separated. If this list is empty, then HSTS directives will not be added. Example: 'max-age=31536000,includeSubDomains,preload'. 🔒
--tls-cert-file="" — file containing the default x509 Certificate for HTTPS. (CA cert, if any, concatenated after server cert). If HTTPS serving is enabled, and --tls-cert-file and --tls-private-key-file are not provided, a self-signed certificate and key are generated for the public address and saved to the directory specified by --cert-dir. ✨
--tls-cipher-suites=[] — comma-separated list of cipher suites for the server. If omitted, the default Go cipher suites will be used. Preferred values: TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256, TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256, TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA, TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256, TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA, TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305, TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256. Insecure values: TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256, TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256, TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA, TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA, TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA, TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256, TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256, TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA, TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, TLS_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA. 😭

bestie the insecure list is called insecure for a REASON, do not pick those, I'm begging 🙈

--tls-curve-preferences=[] — comma-separated list of numeric Go crypto/tls CurveID values, as the allowed key exchange mechanisms for the server. The supported values depend on the Go version used. See https://pkg.go.dev/crypto/tls#CurveID for values supported for each Go version. The order of the list is ignored, and key exchange mechanisms are chosen by Go from this list using an internal preference order. If omitted, the default Go curves will be used. 🌀
--tls-min-version="" — minimum TLS version supported. Possible values: VersionTLS10, VersionTLS11, VersionTLS12, VersionTLS13. 🔐
--tls-private-key-file="" — file containing the default x509 private key matching --tls-cert-file. 🗝️
--tls-sni-cert-key=[] — a pair of x509 certificate and private key file paths, optionally suffixed with a list of domain patterns which are fully qualified domain names, possibly with prefixed wildcard segments. The domain patterns also allow IP addresses, but IPs should only be used if the apiserver has visibility to the IP address requested by a client. If no domain patterns are provided, the names of the certificate are extracted. Non-wildcard matches trump over wildcard matches, explicit domain patterns trump over extracted names. For multiple key/certificate pairs, use the --tls-sni-cert-key multiple times. Examples: "example.crt,example.key" or "foo.crt,foo.key:*.foo.com,foo.com". 🎀
--token-auth-file="" — if set, the file that will be used to secure the secure port of the API server via token authentication. 🔑
--tracing-config-file="" — file with apiserver tracing configuration. 🦋
-v, --v=0 — number for the log level verbosity. ✨
--version=false — --version, --version=raw prints version information and quits; --version=vX.Y.Z... sets the reported version. 👑
--vmodule= — comma-separated list of pattern=N settings for file-filtered logging (only works for text log format). 💅
--watch-cache=true — enable watch caching in the apiserver. 🫶
--watch-cache-sizes=[] — okay so this one is the watch cache size settings for some resources (pods, nodes, etc.), and you give them as a comma separated list, bestie. The individual setting format is resource[.group]#size, where:
- resource is the lowercase plural (no version, periodt),
- group is omitted for resources of apiVersion v1 (aka the legacy core API 💀) and included for the others,
- and size is a number.

Lowkey important: this option is only meaningful for resources built into the apiserver, not ones defined by CRDs or aggregated from external servers, and it's only consulted if the watch-cache is enabled. And here's the tea — the only meaningful size setting to supply here is zero, which means to disable watch caching for the associated resource. All non-zero values are equivalent and mean to not disable watch caching for that resource. So like, zero or nothing, there is no in-between. 🫶

✨ HISTORY ✨

January 2015, originally compiled by Eric Paris (eparis at redhat dot com) based on the kubernetes source material — but hopefully they have been automatically generated since! 😭💅

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀 you made it to the end, iconic behavior fr fr.

this little masterpiece lives in the Kubernetes manual set, filed under User, and goes by the very official name KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes) — that's your source, your version, your whole vibe check. ✨

go forth and kubectl responsibly, mwah 💖🦋

📦 where this page comes from

arch rolling: kube-apiserver 1.37.2-1 · Apache-2.0
fedora 43: kubernetes1.37-systemd 1.37.0-3.fc43
fedora 43: kubernetes1.37-systemd 1.37.1-1.fc43 · Apache-2.0 AND BSD-2-Clause AND BSD-3-Clause AND BSD-3-Clause-HP AND CC-BY-4.0 AND ISC AND MIT AND MPL-2.0
fedora 44: kubernetes1.37-systemd 1.37.0-3.fc44
fedora 44: kubernetes1.37-systemd 1.37.1-1.fc44 · Apache-2.0 AND BSD-2-Clause AND BSD-3-Clause AND BSD-3-Clause-HP AND CC-BY-4.0 AND ISC AND MIT AND MPL-2.0
nixpkgs unstable: kubernetes 1.37.2
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on 2026-10-13: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms