KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes)
π KUBERNETES(1) β the kubectl attach page, bestie edition β¨
okay so. hi. you're here because you want to get all up in a container that's already running. not start a new one, not exec a fresh process β literally attach your terminal to a process that is already vibing inside an existing container. iconic behaviour honestly. π«Ά
this page lives in the kubernetes manual, section 1. let's go. π
πΈ NAME πΈ
kubectl attach β attach to a running container
β¨ SYNOPSIS β¨
π DESCRIPTION π
You attach to a process that is already running inside an existing container. That's the whole bit. no new process, no fresh shell β you're pulling up a chair next to something that's already alive. π
π OPTIONS π
-c,--container=""β the container name. and like, if you don't give one? it uses thekubectl.kubernetes.io/default-containerannotation to pick which container to attach to. and if that's not there either, the first container in the pod gets chosen for you. no pressure bestie, it'll figure it out. π--detach-keys="ctrl-p,ctrl-q"β overrides the key sequence you press to detach from a container. yes, you can change the escape hatch. π--pod-running-timeout=1m0sβ how long to wait until at least one pod is running. it's a length of time, like5s,2m, or3h, and it has to be higher than zero. β³-q,--quiet=falseβ only print output from the remote session. that's it. that's the vibe. quiet mode stays quiet. π-i,--stdin=falseβ pass stdin to the container. you type, it hears you. π«Ά-t,--tty=falseβ stdin is a TTY. the classic little friend that makes your terminal behave like a terminal. β¨
π OPTIONS INHERITED FROM PARENT COMMANDS π
these come from the parent command, and yeah, there's a LOT of them. no skipping though. we list them all, periodt. π
--as=""β username to impersonate for the operation. user could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace. π--as-group=[]β group to impersonate for the operation. this flag can be repeated to specify multiple groups.--as-uid=""β UID to impersonate for the operation.--as-user-extra=[]β user extras to impersonate for the operation. this flag can be repeated to specify multiple values for the same key.--cache-dir="/home/username/.kube/cache"β default cache directory.--certificate-authority=""β path to a cert file for the certificate authority.--client-certificate=""β path to a client certificate file for TLS.--client-key=""β path to a client key file for TLS.--cluster=""β the name of the kubeconfig cluster to use.--context=""β the name of the kubeconfig context to use.--disable-compression=falseβ if true, opt-out of response compression for all requests to the server.--insecure-skip-tls-verify=falseβ if true, the server's certificate will not be checked for validity. this will make your HTTPS connections insecure. π¨
bestie. read that one again. it literally says insecure. only do this if you know exactly what you're doing. π
--kubeconfig=""β path to the kubeconfig file to use for CLI requests.--kuberc=""β path to the kuberc file to use for preferences. this can be disabled by exportingKUBECTL_KUBERC=falsefeature gate or turning off the featureKUBERC=off.--match-server-version=falseβ require server version to match client version.-n,--namespace=""β if present, the namespace scope for this CLI request.--password=""β password for basic authentication to the API server.--profile="none"β name of profile to capture. one of (none|cpu|heap|goroutine|threadcreate|block|mutex|trace). π--profile-output="profile.pprof"β name of the file to write the profile to.--proxy-url=""β proxy URL to use for requests to the API server.--request-timeout="0"β the length of time to wait before giving up on a single server request. non-zero values should contain a corresponding time unit (e.g.1s,2m,3h). a value of zero means don't timeout requests. β°-s,--server=""β the address and port of the Kubernetes API server.--tls-server-name=""β server name to use for server certificate validation. if it is not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used.--token=""β bearer token for authentication to the API server.--user=""β the name of the kubeconfig user to use.--username=""β username for basic authentication to the API server.--version=falseβ--version,--version=rawprints version information and quits;--version=vX.Y.Z...sets the reported version.--warnings-as-errors=falseβ treat warnings received from the server as errors and exit with a non-zero exit code. π₯
π¦ EXAMPLE π¦
# Get output from running pod mypod; use the 'kubectl.kubernetes.io/default-container' annotation
# for selecting the container to be attached or the first container in the pod will be chosen
kubectl attach mypod
# Get output from ruby-container from pod mypod
kubectl attach mypod -c ruby-container
# Switch to raw terminal mode; sends stdin to 'bash' in ruby-container from pod mypod
# and sends stdout/stderr from 'bash' back to the client
kubectl attach mypod -c ruby-container -i -t
# Get output from the first pod of a replica set named nginx
kubectl attach rs/nginx
see how it's giving? pod name straight up, or rs/nginx for a replica set β chef's kiss. πβ¨
π SEE ALSO π
π HISTORY π
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! π
okay that's the whole page, you ate it, go attach to something. π
this was KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes) from the User manuals, dated January 2015, by Eric Paris β love that for us, mwah, bye bestie πβ¨π¦
π¦ where this page comes from
- arch rolling: kubectl 1.37.2-1 Β· Apache-2.0
- fedora 43: kubernetes1.37-client 1.37.0-3.fc43
- fedora 43: kubernetes1.37-client 1.37.1-1.fc43 Β· 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-client 1.37.0-3.fc44
- fedora 44: kubernetes1.37-client 1.37.1-1.fc44 Β· 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: kubectl 1.37.2
- π girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms