What is kubectl?
The command-line tool for interacting with Kubernetes clusters.
kubectl is the primary CLI for communicating with a Kubernetes cluster's API server. Common commands: get (list resources), describe (detailed resource info), apply (create/update from YAML), delete, exec (run command in pod), logs, port-forward (forward local port to pod), and rollout (manage deployment rollouts). kubectl reads kubeconfig (~/.kube/config) for cluster credentials. Speed tips: alias k=kubectl, use --dry-run=client -o yaml to generate YAML templates.
Related Terms
More Kubernetes Terms
Admission Controller
A Kubernetes plugin that intercepts API requests before objects are persisted.
Auto Scaling
Automatically adjusting the number of compute resources based on demand.
ClusterIP
The default Kubernetes Service type that exposes a service on an internal cluster IP.
ConfigMap
A Kubernetes object for storing non-sensitive configuration data as key-value pairs.
Controller Manager
Kubernetes control plane component running control loops to maintain desired state.
CoreDNS
The default DNS server in Kubernetes clusters for service discovery.
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