k9s

# Use default kubeconfig
$ k9s

# Use non-default kubeconfig
$ k9s --kubeconfig /path/to/kubeconfig

# Use non-default context
$ k9s --context fooctx

# Readonly
$ k9s --readonly

# Check info (locations for configuration, logs, screen dumps)
$ k9s info

List Resources

• List a specific resource:

    :<resource>: list Resources, e.g. :pod to list all pods.
    :<resource> <namespace>: list Resources in a given namespace.

• List all available resources / apis:

    :aliases or Ctrl-a: list all available aliases and resources.
    :crd: list all CRDs.
    :apiservices: list all API Services

• Filter

    /<filter>: regex filter.
    /!<filter>: inverse regex filter.
    /-l <label>: filter by labels.
    /-f <filter>: fuzzy match.

Choose namespace

- Type :namespace, select the desired namespace by up or down key, press Enter to select.

Choose context

:ctx: list ctx, then select from the list.
:ctx <context>: swtich to the specified context.

Show Decrypted Secrets

• Type :secrets to list the secrets, then

  x to decrypt the secret. Esc to leave the decrypted display.

Key mapping

• move up and down without moving your right hand:
  • j: down.
  • k: up.
  • h: left
  • l: right
• SPACE: select multiple lines (e.g. then Ctrl-d to delete)
• y: yaml.
• d: describe.
• v: view.
• e: edit.
• l: logs.
• w: wrap.
• r: auto-refresh.
• s:
  • Deployment screen: scale the number of replicas.
  • Pod or Containers screen: shell
• x: decode a Secret.
• f: fullscreen. Tip: enter fullscreen mode before copying, to avoid | in copied text.
• Ctrl-d: delete.
• Ctrl-k: kill (no confirmation).
• Ctrl-w: toggle wide columns. (Equivalent to kubectl … -o wide)
• Ctrl-z: toggle error state
• Ctrl-e: hide header.
• Ctrl-s: save output (e.g. the YAML) to disk.
• Ctrl-l: rollback.

Sort

• Shift-c: sorts by CPU.
• Shift-m: sorts by MEMORY.
• Shift-s: sorts by STATUS.
• Shift-p: sorts by namespace.
• Shift-n: sorts by name.
• Shift-o: sorts by node.
• Shift-i: sorts by IP address.
• Shift-a: sorts by container age.
• Shift-t: sorts by number of restarts.
• Shift-r: sorts by pod readiness.

Helm

- :helm: show helm releases.
- :helm NAMESPACE: show releases in a specific namespace.

User

• There’s no “user” object but in k9s you can see all the users by :users

View

XRay View

• :xray RESOURCE, e.g. :xray deploy.

Pulse View

• :pulse: displays general information about the Kubernetes cluster.

Popeye View

• :popeye or pop: checks all resources for conformity with the correctness criteria and displays the resulting “rating” with explanations. https://popeyecli.io

Show Disk Files

• :dir /path

E.g. :dir /tmp will show your /tmp folder on local disk. One common use case: Ctrl-s to save a yaml, then find it in :dir /tmp/k9s-screens-root, find the file, press e to edit and a to apply. Quit

• Esc: Bails out of view/command/filter mode.
• :q or Ctrl-c: quit k9s.

Meaning of the Header

Most of the headers are easy to understand; some of the special ones:

• %CPU/R: Percentage of requested CPU
• %CPU/L: Percentage of limited CPU
• %MEM/R: Percentage of requested memory
• %MEM/L: Percentage of limited memory
• CPU/A: allocatable CPU

Pods:

• pf: PortForward

Containers:

• PROBES(L:R ): Liveness and Readiness probes

Resource usage

Check CPU and MEM usage on the top left cornor of the screen;

Check usage in Node and Pod page;

This is equivalent to:

$ kubectl top nodes
$ kubectl top pods

$ kubectl top node <node_name>

Customize

• $HOME/.k9s/views.yml: customize the column view for resource lists.
• $HOME/.k9s/plugin.yml: manage plugins.
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/config.yml: k9s config.
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/alias.yml: define your own alias.
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/hotkey.yml: define your own hotkeys.
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/plugin.yml: manage plugins.

How to change log setting

Change ~/.config/k9s/config.yml:

logger:
  tail: 500
  buffer: 5000
  sinceSeconds: -1

How to monitor what’s going on:

• :event (or :ev ): see the stream of events.
• :pod: see the list of pods Shift-a to sort by age.
• :job: see the list of jobs, ordered by time by default.

Benchmark

k9s includes a basic HTTP load generator.

To enable it, you have to configure port forwarding in the pod. Select the pod and press SHIFT + f, go to the port-forward menu (using the pf alias).

After selecting the port and hitting CTRL + b, the benchmark would start. Its results are saved in /tmp for subsequent analysis.

To change the configuration of the benchmark, create the $HOME/.k9s/bench-<my_context>.yml file (unique for each cluster).

Plugins

https://github.com/derailed/k9s/tree/master/plugins

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Reference

• https://k9scli.io
• https://github.com/derailed/k9s