Tools for working with Kubernetes

1 minute read

I’ve been in a number of internal and external calls where tooling to help work with Kubernetes keeps coming up. I thought I would share some of these cool tools in case you weren’t aware of them.

Tools

  • K9S
  • kubectx and kubens
  • fzf

K9S

K9S is a terminal based UI for interacting and managing Kubernetes Clusters. You can find k9s at https://github.com/derailed/k9s or their site https://k9scli.io/.

k9s pulses k9s logs k9s pods k9s rbac
k9s Screens

Kubectx and Kubens

These tools are amazing at quickly switching context and namespaces while working with kubernetes. You can find k9s at https://github.com/ahmetb/kubectx or the author’s site https://ahmet.im/blog/kubectx/.

kubectx can show you the multiple contexts available, switch between them quickly, and create aliases.

kubectx
kubectx

kubens can show you the multiple namespaces available, switch between them quickly, and create aliases.

kubens
kubens

fzf

fzf is a different type of tool. This makes your other tools better. It works on a variety of platforms but what is allows you to do is get an interactive filter. kubectx and kubens will show the list and let you pick what you want instead of runnig multiple commands. You can leverage fzf to pick files to edit more quickly.

fzf
fzf

It works with lots of things, like vi.

fzf-vi
fzf-vi

Conclusion

If you work daily with Kubernetes you might already know about these tools. If you haven’t tried them, give them an install and play around.