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I am encountering a weird behavior when i try to configure several KUBECONFIG environment entries concatenated with : such in the example here :
export KUBECONFIG=/Users/user/Work/company/project/setup/secrets/dev-qz/users/admin.conf:/Users/user/Work/company/project/setup/secrets/dev-wer/users/admin.conf:/Users/user/Work/company/project/setup/secrets/test-wer/users/admin.conf:/Users/user/Work/company/project/setup/secrets/test/users/admin.conf:/Users/user/Work/company/project/setup/secrets/dev-jg/users/admin.conf:/Users/user/Work/company/project/setup/secrets/preprod/users/admin.conf:/Users/user/Work/company/project/setup/secrets/dev/users/admin.conf:/Users/user/Work/company/project/setup/secrets/dev-fxc/users/admin.conf:/Users/user/Work/company/project/setup/secrets/cluster-setup/users/admin.conf:/Users/user/Work/company/project/setup/secrets/test-fxc/users/admin.conf:/Users/user/Work/company/project/setup/secrets/test-jg/users/admin.conf:/Users/user/Work/company/project/setup/secrets/test-qz/users/admin.conf
This is what is happening: if i choose with kubectx the cluster (not every cluster from the list, but just any), when i try kubectl get po i receive : error: You must be logged in to the server (Unauthorized) .
But, if try to reach the same cluster passing it directly to the kubectl command with --kubeconfig=<path to the config> it works.
I am pretty struggling with this and just wanna know if anyone else is facing this kind of issues as well and how have solved it
Eventually i found the problem. The flatten command that suggested to me #mario, helped me to debug better the situation.
Basically, the in memory or in file merge, makes what it supposed to do: create a kubeconfig with all uniq parameters of each kubeconfig files. This works perfectly unless on or more kubeconfig has the same labels that identify the same component. In this case the last in order wins. So if you have the following example:
grep -Rn 'name: kubernetes-admin$' infra/secrets/*/users/admin.conf
infra/secrets/cluster1/users/admin.conf:16:- name: kubernetes-admin
infra/secrets/cluster2/users/admin.conf:17:- name: kubernetes-admin
infra/secrets/cluster3/users/admin.conf:16:- name: kubernetes-admin
cluster1 and cluster2 won't work, while cluster3 will work perfectly, incidentally due to the order.
The solution to this problem is to avoid non uniq fields, by renaming the label that identifies the user (for the example above). Once is done this change, everything will work perfectly.
I agree with #Bernard. This doesn't look like anything specific to kubectx as it is just a bash script, which under the hood uses kubectl binary. You can see its code here. I guess that it will also fail in kubectl if you don't provide the
But, if try to reach the same cluster passing it directly to the
kubectl command with --kubeconfig= it works.
There is a bit of inconsistency in the way you're testing it as you don't provide the specific kubeconfig file to both commands. When you use kubectx it relies on your multiple in-memory merged kubeconfig files and you compare it with working kubectl example in which you directly specify the kubeconfig file that should be used. To make this comparison consistent you should also use kubectx with this particular kubeconfig file. And what happens if you run kubectl command without specifying --kubeconfig=<path to the config> ? I guess you get similar error to the one you get when running kubectx. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
There is a really good article written by Ahmet Alp Balkan - kubectx author, which nicely explains how you can work with multiple kubeconfig files. As you can read in the article:
Tip 2: Using multiple kubeconfigs at once
Sometimes you have a bunch of small kubeconfig files (e.g. one per
cluster) but you want to use them all at once, with tools like
kubectl or kubectx that
work with multiple contexts at once.
To do that, you need a “merged” kubeconfig file. Tip #3 explains how
you can merge the kubeconfigs into a single file, but you can also
merge them in-memory.
By specifying multiple files in KUBECONFIG environment variable,
you can temporarily stitch kubeconfig files together and use them all
in kubectl.
export KUBECONFIG=file1:file2
kubectl get pods --context=cluster-1
kubectl get pods --context=cluster-2
Tip 3: Merging kubeconfig files
Since kubeconfig files are structured YAML files, you can't just
append them to get one big kubeconfig file, but kubectl can help you
merge these files:
KUBECONFIG=file1:file2:file3 kubectl config view --merge --flatten > out.txt
Possible solutions:
Try to merge your multiple kubeconfig files to a single one like in the example above to see if it's possibly problem only with in-memory merge:
KUBECONFIG=file1:file2:file3 kubectl config view --merge --flatten > out.txt
Review all your kubeconfigs and test them individually just to make sure if they're working properly when specified in KUBECONFIG env variable separately. There might be some error in one of them which causes the issue.
I read this post about how to share kube config.
How to share .kube/config?
It says that kubectl config view --flatten --minify is the way to get kube config file.
But when it comes to use this config file, I am confused.
For example, if the output is saved as config-yuta, do I always specify the config file like this?
kubectl --kubeconfig=config-yuta cluster-info
I feel too troublesome to specify --kubeconfig=xxx always.
I just want to switch the context and do like kubectl cluster-info without specifying a certain file when I have multiple clusters.
Should I merge ~/.kube/config with the output?
If so, how can I do it correctly?
You can set multiple clusters in the same kubeconfig file, see this doc
Another solution to use multiple kubeconfig files is to set the environment variable KUBECONFIG
export KUBECONFIG=<path to config-yuta>
And finally it's also possible to merge the file config-yuta with the default kubeconfig with this command:
KUBECONFIG=~/.kube/config:<path to config-yuta> kubectl config view --flatten > ~/.kube/config
I am running into a few issues when trying to get my local kubectl to point to clusters created with kubeadm:
The kubectl config files generated from kubeadm use the same user name, cluster name, and context name, so I cannot simply download them and add them to $KUBECONFIG.
There is no kubectl command for renaming a cluster or user.
The config file generated from kubeadm has the properties client-key-data and client-certificate-data. These are not fields recognized by kubectl when creating a new user or cluster.
Clusters created through kubeadm don't seem to allow access through simple username and password. It seems to require the certificate infos.
It seems like I am limited to modifying the contents of the ~/.kube/config file through string manipulation (gross), which I would like to avoid!! Does anyone have a solution for this?
One option you have is to use different config files for your clusters.
Create one file for each cluster and put them in a directory (I use ~/.kube) giving them meaningful names that help you distinguish them (you can use a cluster identifier for instance).
Then, you can set the KUBECONFIG environment variable to choose a different configuration file when you run kubectl, such as:
KUBECONFIG=/path/to/the/config/file kubectl get po
You can also create aliases in your favourite shell to avoid writing all of the above command.
alias mykube="KUBECONFIG=/path/to/the/config/file kubectl get po"
mykube get po
At the moment, as far as I am aware, there is no tool that would automatically merge different kube config files into one, which is effectively what you need. Personally I do manipulate the .kube/config manually with a text editor. It's not that much of work in the end.
When you use minikube, it automatically creates the local configurations, so it's ready to use. And it appears there is support for multiple clusters in the kubectl command based on the reference for kubectl config.
In the docs for setting up clusters, there's a reference to copying the relevant files to your local machine to access the cluster. I also found an SO Q&A about editing your .kube/config to leverage azure remotely that talked to editing the kube/config file.
It looks like the environment variable $KUBECONFIG can reference multiple locations of these configuration files, with the built-in default being ~/.kube/config (which is what minikube creates).
If I want to be able to use kubectl to invoke commands to multiple clusters, should I download the relevant config file into a new location (for example into ~/gcloud/config, set the KUBECONFIG environment variable to reference both locations?
Or is it better to just explicitly use the --kubeconfig option when invoking kubectl to specify a configuration for the cluster?
I wasn't sure if there was some way of merging the configuration files that would be better, and leverage the kubectl config set-context or kubectl config set-cluster commands instead. The documentation at Kubernetes on "Configure Access to Multiple Clusters" seems to imply a different means of using --kubeconfig along with these kubectl config commands.
In short, what's the best way to interact with multiple separate kubernetes clusters and what are the tradeoffs?
If I want to be able to use kubectl to invoke commands to multiple
clusters, should I download the relevant config file into a new
location (for example into ~/gcloud/config, set the KUBECONFIG
environment variable to reference both locations?
Or is it better to just explicitly use the --kubeconfig option when
invoking kubectl to specify a configuration for the cluster?
That would probably depend on the approach you find simpler and more convenient, and if having security and access management concerns in mind is needed.
From our experience merging various kubeconfig files is very useful for multi-cluster operations, in order to carry out maintenance tasks, and incident management over a group of clusters (contexts & namespaces) simplifying troubleshooting issues based on the possibility to compare configs, manifests, resources and states of K8s services, pods, volumes, namespaces, rs, etc.
However, when automation and deployment (w/ tools like Jenkins, Spinnaker or Helm) are involved most likely having separate kubeconfig files could be a good idea. A hybrid approach can be merging kubeconfig files based on a division by Service tier -> Using files to partition development landscapes (dev, qa, stg, prod) clusters or for Teams -> Roles and Responsibilities in an Enterprise (teamA, teamB, …, teamN) can be understood also within good alternatives.
For multi-cluster merged kubeconfig files scenarios consider kubectx + kubens, which are very powerful tools for kubectlt that let you see the current context (cluster) and namespace, likewise to switch between them.
In short, what's the best way to interact with multiple separate
kubernetes clusters and what are the trade offs?
The trade offs should possibly be analyzed considering the most important factors for your project. Having a single merged kubeconfig file seems simpler, even simple if you merge it with ~/.kube/config to be used by default by kubectl and just switching between cluster/namespaces with --context kubectl flag. On the other hand if limiting the scope of the kubeconfig is a must, having them segregated and using --kubeconfig=file1 sounds like the best way to go.
Probably there is NOT a best way for every case and scenario, knowing how to configure kubeconfig file knowing its precedence will help though.
In this article -> https://www.nrmitchi.com/2019/01/managing-kubeconfig-files/ you'll find a complementary and valuable opinion:
While having all of the contexts you may need in one file is nice, it
is difficult to maintain, and seldom the default case. Multiple tools
which provide you with access credentials will provide a fresh
kubeconfig to use. While you can merge the configs together into
~/.kube/config, it is manual, and makes removing contexts more
difficult (having to explicitly remove the context, cluster, and
user). There is an open issue in Kubernetes tracking this. However by
keeping each provided config file separate, and just loading all of
them, removal is much easier (just remove the file). To me, this
seems like a much more manageable approach.
I prefer to keep all individual config files under ~/.kube/configs, and by taking advantage of the multiple-path aspect of the $KUBECONFIG environment variable option, we can make this happen.
If you’re using kubectl, here’s the preference that takes effect while determining which kubeconfig file is used.
use --kubeconfig flag, if specified
use KUBECONFIG environment variable, if specified
use $HOME/.kube/config file
With this, you can easily override kubeconfig file you use per the kubectl command:
#
# using --kubeconfig flag
#
kubectl get pods --kubeconfig=file1
kubectl get pods --kubeconfig=file2
#
# or
# using `KUBECONFIG` environment variable
#
KUBECONFIG=file1 kubectl get pods
KUBECONFIG=file2 kubectl get pods
#
# or
# merging your kubeconfig file w/ $HOME/.kube/config (w/ cp backup)
#
cp $HOME/.kube/config $HOME/.kube/config.backup.$(date +%Y-%m-%d.%H:%M:%S)
KUBECONFIG= $HOME/.kube/config:file2:file3 kubectl config view --merge --flatten > \
~/.kube/merged_kubeconfig && mv ~/.kube/merged_kubeconfig ~/.kube/config
kubectl get pods --context=cluster-1
kubectl get pods --context=cluster-2
NOTE: The --minify flag allows us to extract only info about that context, and the --flatten flag allows us to keep the credentials unredacted.
Bonus (extra points!)
Using multiple kubeconfigs at once
You can save AKS (Azure Container Service), or AWS EKS (Elastic Container Service for K8s) or GKE (Google Container Engine) cluster contexts to separate files and set the KUBECONFIG env var to reference both file locations.
For instance, when you create a GKE cluster (or retrieve its credentials) through the gcloud command, it normally modifies your default ~/.kube/config file. However, you can set $KUBECONFIG for gcloud to save cluster credentials to a file:
KUBECONFIG=c1.yaml gcloud container clusters get-credentials "cluster-1"
Then as we mentioned before using multiple kubeconfigs at once can be very useful to work with multiple contexts at the same time.
To do that, you need a “merged” kubeconfig file. In the section "Merging kubeconfig files" below, we explain how you can merge the kubeconfigs into a single file, but you can also merge them in-memory.
By specifying multiple files in KUBECONFIG environment variable, you can temporarily stitch kubeconfig files together and use them all in kubectl .
#
# Kubeconfig in-memory merge
#
export KUBECONFIG=file1:file2
kubectl get pods --context=cluster-1
kubectl get pods --context=cluster-2
#
# For your example
# merging your kubeconfig file w/ $HOME/.kube/config (w/ cp backup)
#
cp $HOME/.kube/config $HOME/.kube/config.backup.$(date +%Y-%m-%d.%H:%M:%S)
KUBECONFIG= $HOME/.kube/config:file2: kubectl config view --merge --flatten > \
~/.kube/merged_kubeconfig && mv ~/.kube/merged_kubeconfig ~/.kube/config
kubectl get pods --context=cluster-1
kubectl get pods --context=cluster-2
Merging kubeconfig files
Since kubeconfig files are structured YAML files, you can’t just append them to get one big kubeconfig file, but kubectl can help you merge these files:
#
# Merging your kubeconfig file w/ $HOME/.kube/config (w/ cp backup)
#
cp $HOME/.kube/config $HOME/.kube/config.backup.$(date +%Y-%m-%d.%H:%M:%S)
KUBECONFIG=$HOME/.kube/config:file2:file3 kubectl config view --merge --flatten > \
~/.kube/merged_kubeconfig && mv ~/.kube/merged_kubeconfig ~/.kube/config
kubectl get pods --context=cluster-1
kubectl get pods --context=cluster-2
ref article 1: https://ahmet.im/blog/mastering-kubeconfig/
ref article 2: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/46381
I have a series of shell functions that boil down to kubectl --context=$CTX --namespace=$NS, allowing me to contextualize each shell [1]. But if you are cool with that approach, then rather than rolling your own, https://github.com/Comcast/k8sh will likely interest you. I just wish it was shell functions instead of a sub-shell
But otherwise, yes, I keep all the config values in the one ~/.kube/config
footnote 1: if you weren't already aware, one can also change the title of terminal windows via title() { printf '\033]0;%s\007' "$*"; } which I do in order to remind me which cluster/namespace/etc is in effect for that tab/window
kubectl get pods --kubeconfig file1.yaml
kubectl get pods --kubeconfig file2.yaml
you can use (--kubeconfig) flag to tell the kubectl that you want to run kubectl based on file1 or file2. in the note, the file is kubernetes config
I have Kubernetes working well in two different environments, namely in my local environment (MacBook running minikube) and as well as on Google's Container Engine (GCE, Kubernetes on Google Cloud). I use the MacBook/local environment to develop and test my YAML files and then, upon completion, try them on GCE.
Currently I need to work with each environment individually: I need to edit the YAML files in my local environment and, when ready, (git) clone them to a GCE environment and then use/deploy them. This is a somewhat cumbersome process.
Ideally, I would like to use kubectl from my Macbook to easily switch between the local minikube or GCE Kubernetes environments and to easily determine where the YAML files are used. Is there a simple way to switch contexts to do this?
You can switch from local (minikube) to gcloud and back with:
kubectl config use-context CONTEXT_NAME
to list all contexts:
kubectl config get-contexts
You can create different enviroments for local and gcloud and put it in separate yaml files.
List contexts
kubectl config get-contexts
Switch contexts
kubectl config set current-context MY-CONTEXT
A faster shortcut to the standard kubectl commands is to use kubectx:
List contexts: kubectx
Equivalent to kubectl config get-contexts
Switch context (to foo): kubectx foo
Equivalent to kubectl config use-context foo
To install on macOS: brew install kubectx
The kubectx package also includes a similar tool for switching namespaces called kubens.
These two are super convenient if you work in multiple contexts and namespaces regularly.
More info: https://ahmet.im/blog/kubectx/
If you're looking for a GUI-based solution for Mac and have the Docker Desktop installed, you can use the Docker Menu Bar icon. Here you can find "Kubernetes" menu with all the contexts you have in your kubeconfig and easily switch between them.
To get all context
C:\Users\arun>kubectl config get-contexts
To get current context
C:\Users\arun>kubectl config current-context
To switch context
C:\Users\arun>kubectl config use-context <any context name from above list>
Latest 2020 answer is here,
A simple way to switch between kubectl context,
kubectl top nodes **--context=**context01name
kubectl top nodes --context=context02name
You can also store the context name as env like
context01name=gke_${GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT}_us-central1-a_standard-cluster-1
I got bored of typing this over and over so I wrote a simple bash utility to switch contexts
You can find it here https://github.com/josefkorbel/kube-switch
The canonical answer of switching/reading/manipulating different kubernetes environments (aka kubernetes contexts) is, as Mark mentioned, to use kubectl config, see below:
$ kubectl config
Modify kubeconfig files using subcommands like "kubectl config set current-context my-context"
Available Commands:
current-context Displays the current-context
delete-cluster Delete the specified cluster from the kubeconfig
delete-context Delete the specified context from the kubeconfig
get-clusters Display clusters defined in the kubeconfig
get-contexts Describe one or many contexts
rename-context Renames a context from the kubeconfig file.
set Sets an individual value in a kubeconfig file
set-cluster Sets a cluster entry in kubeconfig
set-context Sets a context entry in kubeconfig
set-credentials Sets a user entry in kubeconfig
unset Unsets an individual value in a kubeconfig file
use-context Sets the current-context in a kubeconfig file
view Display merged kubeconfig settings or a specified kubeconfig file
Usage:
kubectl config SUBCOMMAND [options]
Behind the scene, there is a ~/.kube/config YAML file that stores all the available contexts with their corresponding credentials and endpoints for each contexts.
Kubectl off the shelf doesn't make it easy to manage different kubernetes contexts as you probably already know. Rather than rolling your own script to manage all that, a better approach is to use a mature tool called kubectx, created by a Googler named "Ahmet Alp Balkan" who's on Kubernetes / Google Cloud Platform developer experiences Team that builds tooling like this. I highly recommend it.
https://github.com/ahmetb/kubectx
$ kctx --help
USAGE:
kubectx : list the contexts
kubectx <NAME> : switch to context <NAME>
kubectx - : switch to the previous context
kubectx <NEW_NAME>=<NAME> : rename context <NAME> to <NEW_NAME>
kubectx <NEW_NAME>=. : rename current-context to <NEW_NAME>
kubectx -d <NAME> [<NAME...>] : delete context <NAME> ('.' for current-context)
(this command won't delete the user/cluster entry
that is used by the context)
kubectx -h,--help : show this message
TL;DR: I created a GUI to switch Kubernetes contexts via AppleScript. I activate it via shift-cmd-x.
I too had the same issue. It was a pain switching contexts by the command line. I used FastScripts to set a key combo (shift-cmd-x) to run the following AppleScript (placed in this directory: $(HOME)/Library/Scripts/Applications/Terminal).
use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions
do shell script "/usr/local/bin/kubectl config current-context"
set curcontext to result
do shell script "/usr/local/bin/kubectl config get-contexts -o name"
set contexts to paragraphs of result
choose from list contexts with prompt "Select Context:" with title "K8s Context Selector" default items {curcontext}
set scriptArguments to item 1 of result
do shell script "/usr/local/bin/kubectl config use-context " & scriptArguments
display dialog "Switched to " & scriptArguments buttons {"ok"} default button 1
Cloning the YAML files across repos for different environments is definitely ideal. What you to do is templatize your YAML files - by extracting the parameters which differ from environment to environment.
You can, of course, use some templating engine and separate the values in a YAML and produce the YAML for a specific environment. But this is easily doable if you adopt the Helm Charts. To take a look at some sample charts go to stable directory at this Github repo
To take an example of the Wordpress chart, you could have two different commands for two environments:
For Dev:
helm install --name dev-release --set \
wordpressUsername=dev_admin, \
wordpressPassword=dev_password, \
mariadb.mariadbRootPassword=dev_secretpassword \
stable/wordpress
It is not necessary to pass these values on CLI though, you can store the values in a file called aptly values.yml and you could have different files for different environments
You will need some work in converting to Helm chart standards, but the effort will be worth it.
Check also the latest (docker 19.03) docker context command.
Ajeet Singh Raina ) illustrates it in "Docker 19.03.0 Pre-Release: Fast Context Switching, Rootless Docker, Sysctl support for Swarm Services"
A context is essentially the configuration that you use to access a particular cluster.
Say, for example, in my particular case, I have 4 different clusters – mix of Swarm and Kubernetes running locally and remotely.
Assume that I have a default cluster running on my Desktop machine , 2 node Swarm Cluster running on Google Cloud Platform, 5-Node Cluster running on Play with Docker playground and a single-node Kubernetes cluster running on Minikube and that I need to access pretty regularly.
Using docker context CLI I can easily switch from one cluster(which could be my development cluster) to test to production cluster in seconds.
$ sudo docker context --help
Usage: docker context COMMAND
Manage contexts
Commands:
create Create a context
export Export a context to a tar or kubeconfig file
import Import a context from a tar file
inspect Display detailed information on one or more contexts
ls List contexts
rm Remove one or more contexts
update Update a context
use Set the current docker context
Run 'docker context COMMAND --help' for more information on a command.
For example:
[:)Captain'sBay=>sudo docker context ls
NAME DESCRIPTION DOCKER ENDPOINT KUBERNETES ENDPOINT ORCHESTRATOR
default * Current DOCKER_HOST based configuration unix:///var/run/docker.sock https://127.0.0.1:16443 (default) swarm
swarm-context1
I use kubeswitch (disclaimer: I wrote the tool) that can be used just like kubectx, but is designed for a large number of kubeconfig files.
If you have to deal with hundreds or thousands of kubeconfig files, this tool might be useful to you, otherwise kubectx or kubectl config use-context might be sufficient.
For instance, it adds capabilities like reading from vault, hot reload while searching, and an index to speed up subsequent searches.
You can install it from here.
EDIT: now also includes support for GKE directly. So you can use and discover kubeconfig files without having to manually download and update them.
In case you might be looking for a simple way to switch between different contexts maybe this will be of help.
I got inspired by kubectx and kswitch scripts already mentioned, which I can recommend for most use-cases. They are helping with solving the switching task, but are breaking for me on some bigger or less standard configurations of ~/.kube/config. So I created a sys-exec invocation wrapper and a short-hand around kubectl.
If you call k without params you would see an intercepted prompt to switch context.
Switch kubectl to a different context/cluster/namespace.
Found following options to select from:
>>> context: [1] franz
>>> context: [2] gke_foo_us-central1-a_live-v1
>>> context: [3] minikube
--> new num [?/q]:
Further, k continues to act as a short-hand. The following is equivalent:
kubectl get pods --all-namespaces
k get pods -A
k p -A
yes, i think this is what your asking about. To view your current config, use kubectl config view. kubectl loads and merges config from the following locations (in order)
--kubeconfig=/path/to/.kube/config command line flag
KUBECONFIG=/path/to/.kube/config env variable
$HOME/.kube/config - The DEFAULT
i use --kubeconfig since i switch alot between multiple clusters. its slightly cumbersome but it works well.
see these for more info.
https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/administer-cluster/share-configuration/ and https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/authenticate-across-clusters-kubeconfig/