KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes)

👑 KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes) — the kubectl cp glow-up

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about kubectl cp from the kubernetes manual, originally scribed by Eric Paris back in Jan 2015. This is the page that copies your lil files in and out of containers and honestly? she's giving ✨essential tool✨ energy.

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🌸 NAME 🌸

kubectl cp — Copy files and directories to and from containers

like. that's it. that's the whole job. she moves your files. no cap. 🦋

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

kubectl cp [OPTIONS]

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

Copy files and directories to and from containers.

fr fr that's the description. she does one thing and she does it well. main character energy, minimal dialogue. 💅

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -c, --container="" — the container name, bestie. If you omit it, kubectl uses the kubectl.kubernetes.io/default-container annotation to pick which container to attach to — and if that's not there either, it just grabs the first container in the pod. so like, it'll figure it out, but maybe tell her what you want? 🥰
• --no-preserve=false — when this is on, the copied file/directory's ownership and permissions will not be preserved in the container. so your perms get left at home. noted. 😭
• --retries=0 — set the number of retries to complete a copy operation from a container. Specify 0 to disable, or any negative value for infinite retrying. The default is 0 (no retry). so if your network is being a little dramatic, this is your girl. 🔥

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🌈 OPTIONS INHERITED FROM PARENT COMMANDS 🌈

these are the family traits she got from her parent command, and yes, we're listing every single one because we don't skip. periodt. 👑

• --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

🚨 bestie. this one literally has "insecure" in the name. it does exactly what it says. do not be surprised pikachu about it. 💀

• --kubeconfig="" — Path to the kubeconfig file to use for CLI requests.
• --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 whole vibe, verbatim, because these commands are sacred text and we do not paraphrase:

# !!!Important Note!!!
# Requires that the 'tar' binary is present in your container
# image.  If 'tar' is not present, 'kubectl cp' will fail.
#
# For advanced use cases, such as symlinks, wildcard expansion or
# file mode preservation, consider using 'kubectl exec'.

# Copy /tmp/foo local file to /tmp/bar in a remote pod in namespace <some-namespace>
tar cf - /tmp/foo | kubectl exec -i -n <some-namespace> <some-pod> -- tar xf - -C /tmp/bar

# Copy /tmp/foo from a remote pod to /tmp/bar locally
kubectl exec -n <some-namespace> <some-pod> -- tar cf - /tmp/foo | tar xf - -C /tmp/bar

# Copy /tmp/foo_dir local directory to /tmp/bar_dir in a remote pod in the default namespace
kubectl cp /tmp/foo_dir <some-pod>:/tmp/bar_dir

# Copy /tmp/foo local file to /tmp/bar in a remote pod in a specific container
kubectl cp /tmp/foo <some-pod>:/tmp/bar -c <specific-container>

# Copy /tmp/foo local file to /tmp/bar in a remote pod in namespace <some-namespace>
kubectl cp /tmp/foo <some-namespace>/<some-pod>:/tmp/bar

# Copy /tmp/foo from a remote pod to /tmp/bar locally
kubectl cp <some-namespace>/<some-pod>:/tmp/foo /tmp/bar

⚠️ real talk though: that first note is doing SO much work. You need the tar binary in your container image. If tar isn't there, kubectl cp will fail. and for the fancy stuff — symlinks, wildcard expansion, file mode preservation — the page says consider using kubectl exec instead. iykyk. 🫶

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• kubectl(1)

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💜 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! 🎀

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and that's the whole page bestie, you ate that. 💅

Manuals · User · KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes) — this one's from the kubernetes manual set, and the page is dated Jan 2015 up top with January 2015 in the HISTORY. go forth and copy files, icon. ✨🌈💖