kubectl describe

Synopsis

Show details of a specific resource or group of resources.

Print a detailed description of the selected resources, including related resources such as events or controllers. You may select a single object by name, all objects of that type, provide a name prefix, or label selector. For example:

  1. $ kubectl describe TYPE NAME_PREFIX

will first check for an exact match on TYPE and NAME_PREFIX. If no such resource exists, it will output details for every resource that has a name prefixed with NAME_PREFIX.

Use “kubectl api-resources” for a complete list of supported resources.

  1. kubectl describe (-f FILENAME | TYPE [NAME_PREFIX | -l label] | TYPE/NAME)

Examples

  1. # Describe a node
  2. kubectl describe nodes kubernetes-node-emt8.c.myproject.internal
  3. # Describe a pod
  4. kubectl describe pods/nginx
  5. # Describe a pod identified by type and name in "pod.json"
  6. kubectl describe -f pod.json
  7. # Describe all pods
  8. kubectl describe pods
  9. # Describe pods by label name=myLabel
  10. kubectl describe pods -l name=myLabel
  11. # Describe all pods managed by the 'frontend' replication controller
  12. # (rc-created pods get the name of the rc as a prefix in the pod name)
  13. kubectl describe pods frontend

Options

-A, —all-namespaces

If present, list the requested object(s) across all namespaces. Namespace in current context is ignored even if specified with —namespace.

—chunk-size int     Default: 500

Return large lists in chunks rather than all at once. Pass 0 to disable. This flag is beta and may change in the future.

-f, —filename strings

Filename, directory, or URL to files containing the resource to describe

-h, —help

help for describe

-k, —kustomize string

Process the kustomization directory. This flag can’t be used together with -f or -R.

-R, —recursive

Process the directory used in -f, —filename recursively. Useful when you want to manage related manifests organized within the same directory.

-l, —selector string

Selector (label query) to filter on, supports ‘=’, ‘==’, and ‘!=’.(e.g. -l key1=value1,key2=value2). Matching objects must satisfy all of the specified label constraints.

—show-events     Default: true

If true, display events related to the described object.

—as string

Username to impersonate for the operation. User could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace.

—as-group strings

Group to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple groups.

—as-uid string

UID to impersonate for the operation.

—cache-dir string     Default: “$HOME/.kube/cache”

Default cache directory

—certificate-authority string

Path to a cert file for the certificate authority

—client-certificate string

Path to a client certificate file for TLS

—client-key string

Path to a client key file for TLS

—cloud-provider-gce-l7lb-src-cidrs cidrs     Default: 130.211.0.0/22,35.191.0.0/16

CIDRs opened in GCE firewall for L7 LB traffic proxy & health checks

—cloud-provider-gce-lb-src-cidrs cidrs     Default: 130.211.0.0/22,209.85.152.0/22,209.85.204.0/22,35.191.0.0/16

CIDRs opened in GCE firewall for L4 LB traffic proxy & health checks

—cluster string

The name of the kubeconfig cluster to use

—context string

The name of the kubeconfig context to use

—default-not-ready-toleration-seconds int     Default: 300

Indicates the tolerationSeconds of the toleration for notReady:NoExecute that is added by default to every pod that does not already have such a toleration.

—default-unreachable-toleration-seconds int     Default: 300

Indicates the tolerationSeconds of the toleration for unreachable:NoExecute that is added by default to every pod that does not already have such a toleration.

—disable-compression

If true, opt-out of response compression for all requests to the server

—insecure-skip-tls-verify

If true, the server’s certificate will not be checked for validity. This will make your HTTPS connections insecure

—kubeconfig string

Path to the kubeconfig file to use for CLI requests.

—match-server-version

Require server version to match client version

-n, —namespace string

If present, the namespace scope for this CLI request

—password string

Password for basic authentication to the API server

—profile string     Default: “none”

Name of profile to capture. One of (none|cpu|heap|goroutine|threadcreate|block|mutex)

—profile-output string     Default: “profile.pprof”

Name of the file to write the profile to

—request-timeout string     Default: “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 string

The address and port of the Kubernetes API server

—storage-driver-buffer-duration duration     Default: 1m0s

Writes in the storage driver will be buffered for this duration, and committed to the non memory backends as a single transaction

—storage-driver-db string     Default: “cadvisor”

database name

—storage-driver-host string     Default: “localhost:8086”

database host:port

—storage-driver-password string     Default: “root”

database password

—storage-driver-secure

use secure connection with database

—storage-driver-table string     Default: “stats”

table name

—storage-driver-user string     Default: “root”

database username

—tls-server-name string

Server name to use for server certificate validation. If it is not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used

—token string

Bearer token for authentication to the API server

—user string

The name of the kubeconfig user to use

—username string

Username for basic authentication to the API server

—version version[=true]

—version, —version=raw prints version information and quits; —version=vX.Y.Z… sets the reported version

—warnings-as-errors

Treat warnings received from the server as errors and exit with a non-zero exit code

See Also

  • kubectl - kubectl controls the Kubernetes cluster manager