How to configure kubectl with cluster information from a .conf file?

I have an admin.conf file containing info about a cluster, so that the following command works fine:

kubectl --kubeconfig ./admin.conf get nodes 

How can I config kubectl to use the cluster, user and authentication from this file as default in one command? I only see separate set-cluster, set-credentials, set-context, use-context etc. I want to get the same output when I simply run:

kubectl get nodes 

9 Answers

Here are the official documentation for how to configure kubectl

You have a few options, specifically to this question, you can just copy your admin.conf to ~/.kube/config

The best way I've found was to use an environment variable:

export KUBECONFIG=/path/to/admin.conf 

I just alias the kubectl command into separate ones for my dev and production environments via .bashrc

alias k8='kubectl' alias k8prd='kubectl --kubeconfig ~/.kube/config_prd.conf' 

I prefer this method as it requires me to define the environment for each command.. whereas using an environment variable could potentially lead you to running a command within the wrong environment

Before answers have been very solid and informative, I will try to add my 2 cents here

Configure kubeconfig file knowing its precedence

If you’re using kubectl, here’s the preference that takes effect while determining which kubeconfig file is used.

1. use --kubeconfig flag, if specified
2. use KUBECONFIG environment variable, if specified
3. 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.

For your example

kubectl get pods --kubeconfig=/path/to/admin.conf # # or: # KUBECONFIG=/path/to/admin.conf kubectl get pods # # or: # cp $HOME/.kube/config $HOME/.kube/config.backup.$(date) KUBECONFIG= $HOME/.kube/config:/path/to/admin.conf 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 

Although this precedence list not officially specified in the documentation it is codified here. If you’re developing client tools for Kubernetes, you should consider using cli-runtime library which will bring the standard --kubeconfig flag and $KUBECONFIG detection to your program.

ref article:

kubectl uses ~/.kube/config as the default configuration file. So you could just copy your admin.conf over it.

I name all cluster configs as .kubeconfig and this lives in project directory.

Then in .bashrc or .bash_profile I have the following export:

export KUBECONFIG=.kubeconfig:$HOME/.kube/config 

This way when I'm in the project directory kubectl will load local .kubeconfig. Hope that helps

Because there is no built-in kubectl config merge command at the moment (follow this) you can add this function to your .bashrc (or .zshrc):

function kmerge() { if [ $# -eq 0 ] then echo "Please pass the location of the kubeconfig you wish to merge" fi KUBECONFIG=~/.kube/config:$1 kubectl config view --flatten > ~/.kube/mergedkub && mv ~/.kube/mergedkub ~/.kube/config } 

Then you can just run from termial:

kmerge /path/to/admin.conf

and the config file will be merged to ~/.kube/config.

You can now switch to the new context with:

kubectl config use-context <new-context-name> 

Or if you're using kubectx (recommended) you can run: kubectx <new-context-name>.

(The kmerge function is based on @MichaelSp answer at this post).

Kubernetes keeps the path to search for config files in $KUBECONFIG

If you want to add one more config path on top of the existing KUBECONFIG without overriding it (and keeping ~/.kube/config as the default path to search).

Just run the following each time you want to add a conf file to the KUBECONFIG path

export KUBECONFIG=${KUBECONFIG:-~/.kube/config}:/path/to/admin.conf 

You can check it worked by listing the available contexts

kubectl config get-contexts 

Then select the one you want to use

kubectl config use-context <context-name> 

Manage your config files proper,place below in your profile file, source the .profile / .bash_profile

for kconfig in $HOME/.kube/config $(find $HOME/.kube/ -iname "*.config") do if [ -f "$kconfig" ];then export KUBECONFIG=$KUBECONFIG:$kconfig fi done 

switch the contexts from kubectl