KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes)

💅 KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes) 💅

okay bestie, pull up a chair, we're reading the manual for kubectl — that's the Kubernetes command-line tool, manual section 1 (aka "user commands", the good stuff). This particular page? It's the one Eric Paris wrote back in January 2015 and it's all about one lil subcommand that will genuinely change your life: config view. no cap. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

kubectl config view — Display merged kubeconfig settings or a specified kubeconfig file 💖

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

kubectl config view [OPTIONS]

that's it. that's the whole vibe. no required args, just you and your options ✨

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So what does it actually do? It displays merged kubeconfig settings, or a specific kubeconfig file if you point it at one. Your kubeconfig is basically the group chat of your clusters, contexts, and users — and this command is you scrolling through the whole chat history.

And here's the little trick that makes everyone obsessed: you can use --output jsonpath={...} to extract specific values using a jsonpath expression. yes bestie, you can yoink exactly the one field you need and nothing else. main character energy fr fr 👑

💅 OPTIONS 💅

• --allow-missing-template-keys=true — If true, ignore any errors in templates when a field or map key is missing in the template. Only applies to golang and jsonpath output formats. (translation: no crying over missing keys, we simply move on 💀)
• --flatten=false — Flatten the resulting kubeconfig file into self-contained output (useful for creating portable kubeconfig files). perfect for when you wanna hand someone a kubeconfig that Just Works on their machine 🎀
• --merge=true — Merge the full hierarchy of kubeconfig files. the whole family tree, all of it 🌈
• --minify=false — Remove all information not used by current-context from the output. decluttering queen ✨
• -o, --output="yaml" — Output format. One of: (json, yaml, kyaml, name, go-template, go-template-file, template, templatefile, jsonpath, jsonpath-as-json, jsonpath-file). pick your fighter 🥊
• --raw=false — Display raw byte data and sensitive data. ⚠️ sensitive bestie. this one's showing secrets.
• --show-managed-fields=false — If true, keep the managedFields when printing objects in JSON or YAML format.
• --template="" — Template string or path to template file to use when -o=go-template, -o=go-template-file. The template format is golang templates [http://golang.org/pkg/text/template/#pkg-overview].

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👑 OPTIONS INHERITED FROM PARENT COMMANDS 👑

these are the ones kubectl passed down to literally every child command. the family inheritance, if you will. 🧬

• --as="" — Username to impersonate for the operation. User could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace.
• --as-group=[] — Group to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple groups.
• --as-uid="" — UID to impersonate for the operation.
• --as-user-extra=[] — 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" — Default cache directory.
• --certificate-authority="" — Path to a cert file for the certificate authority.
• --client-certificate="" — Path to a client certificate file for TLS.
• --client-key="" — Path to a client key file for TLS.
• --cluster="" — The name of the kubeconfig cluster to use.
• --context="" — The name of the kubeconfig context to use.
• --disable-compression=false — If true, opt-out of response compression for all requests to the server.
• --insecure-skip-tls-verify=false — If true, the server's certificate will not be checked for validity. This will make your HTTPS connections insecure. 🚨 like, actually insecure. this is the "trust me bro" flag.
• --kubeconfig="" — use a particular kubeconfig file.
• --kuberc="" — Path to the kuberc file to use for preferences. This can be disabled by exporting KUBECTL_KUBERC=false feature gate or turning off the feature KUBERC=off.
• --match-server-version=false — Require server version to match client version.
• -n, --namespace="" — If present, the namespace scope for this CLI request.
• --password="" — Password for basic authentication to the API server.
• --profile="none" — Name of profile to capture. One of (none|cpu|heap|goroutine|threadcreate|block|mutex|trace).
• --profile-output="profile.pprof" — Name of the file to write the profile to.
• --proxy-url="" — Proxy URL to use for requests to the API server.
• --request-timeout="0" — 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.
• -s, --server="" — The address and port of the Kubernetes API server.
• --tls-server-name="" — Server name to use for server certificate validation. If it is not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used.
• --token="" — Bearer token for authentication to the API server.
• --user="" — The name of the kubeconfig user to use.
• --username="" — Username for basic authentication to the API server.
• --version=false — --version, --version=raw prints version information and quits; --version=vX.Y.Z... sets the reported version.
• --warnings-as-errors=false — Treat warnings received from the server as errors and exit with a non-zero exit code.

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🍓 EXAMPLE 🍓

okay here's the part where it gets fun, these are straight from the source, copy them exactly bestie:

# Show merged kubeconfig settings
kubectl config view

# Show merged kubeconfig settings, raw certificate data, and exposed secrets
kubectl config view --raw

# Get the password for the e2e user
kubectl config view -o jsonpath='{.users[?(@.name == "e2e")].user.password}'

see that third one? that's the jsonpath magic we were talking about. extracting one tiny password field out of the entire config. it's giving hacker but make it cute 💖

⚠️ real talk though: that --raw example literally says "exposed secrets". be careful where you paste that output. no posting it in the group chat, iykyk 💀

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• kubectl-config(1)

(that's the parent command, go read it too, it's the whole config family 🫶)

📜 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! 😭 (he said "hopefully" and honestly? relatable.)

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and that's the whole page bestie!! this was the kubectl config view manual, section 1 of the kubernetes manuals, in the User category. go forth and view your configs responsibly 💜 ✨ 🎀