KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes)

✨ NAME ✨

kubectl exec — bestie, this is the one that lets you execute a command in a container 💅

This page lives in the KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes) manual, and honestly? It's giving main character energy.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

kubectl exec [OPTIONS]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Execute a command in a container. That's it, that's the whole vibe — you point at a pod, you say what to run, it runs. Iconic behavior, no cap 💖

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -c, --container="" — Container name. If you omit it, kubectl peeks at 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. Defaults gonna default, bestie 🎀
• -f, --filename=[] — to use to exec into the resource
• --pod-running-timeout=1m0s — The length of time (like 5s, 2m, or 3h, higher than zero) to wait until at least one pod is running. So patient of you 🫶
• -q, --quiet=false — Only print output from the remote session. No extra chatter, just the goods.
• -i, --stdin=false — Pass stdin to the container. Feed it, it's hungry 😭
• -t, --tty=false — Stdin is a TTY. That's the "make it look like a real terminal" switch, and yes, you want it for interactive stuff.

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👑 OPTIONS INHERITED FROM PARENT COMMANDS 👑

These bad boys come down from kubectl itself, so they work here too:

• --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. Read that one again. Skipping TLS verification means nobody's checking who you're actually talking to. Secure vibes: off.

• --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 this is the part where it all clicks, watch this:

# Get output from running the 'date' command from pod mypod, using the first container by default
kubectl exec mypod -- date

# Get output from running the 'date' command in ruby-container from pod mypod
kubectl exec mypod -c ruby-container -- date

# 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 exec mypod -c ruby-container -i -t -- bash -il

# List contents of /usr from the first container of pod mypod and sort by modification time
# If the command you want to execute in the pod has any flags in common (e.g. -i),
# you must use two dashes (--) to separate your command's flags/arguments
# Also note, do not surround your command and its flags/arguments with quotes
# unless that is how you would execute it normally (i.e., do ls -t /usr, not "ls -t /usr")
kubectl exec mypod -i -t -- ls -t /usr

# Get output from running 'date' command from the first pod of the deployment mydeployment, using the first container by default
kubectl exec deploy/mydeployment -- date

# Get output from running 'date' command from the first pod of the service myservice, using the first container by default
kubectl exec svc/myservice -- date

💖 The -- thing is SO important bestie. If your command has a flag that clashes with a kubectl exec flag (like -i), the two dashes tell kubectl "everything after this is NOT yours." And don't quote your whole command — ls -t /usr, not "ls -t /usr" — unless that's genuinely how you'd run it normally. Periodt.

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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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okay that's the whole page, you ate that 🍓 This was KUBERNETES(1)(kubernetes), from the Manuals / User corner of the world, and the vibe is signed off with love — mwah 💅✨