k9s Cheatsheet

Last Updated: 2023-08-27

Start k9s

# Use default kubeconfig
$ k9s

# Use non-default kubeconfig
$ k9s --kubeconfig /path/to/kubeconfig

# Use non-default context
$ k9s --context fooctx

# Readonly
$ k9s --readonly

# Check info (locations for configuration, logs, screen dumps)
$ k9s info

Using k9s

List Resources

List a specific resource:

:<resource>: list Resources, e.g. :pod to list all pods.
:<resource> <namespace>: list Resources in a given namespace.

List all available resources:

:aliases or Ctrl-a: list all available aliases and resources.
:crd: list all CRDs.

Filter

/<filter>: regex filter.
/!<filter>: inverse regex filter.
/-l <label>: filter by labels.
/-f <filter>: fuzzy match.

Choose namespace

Type :namespace, select the desired namespace by up or down key, press Enter to select.

Choose context

:ctx: list ctx, then select from the list.
:ctx <context>: swtich to the specified context.

Show Decrypted Secrets

Type :secrets to list the secrets, then

x to decrypt the secret.
Esc to leave the decrypted display.

Key mappingg

move up and down without moving your right hand:
- j: down.
- k: up.
SPACE: select multiple lines (e.g. then Ctrl-d to delete)
y: yaml.
d: describe.
v: view.
e: edit.
l: logs.
w: wrap.
r: auto-refresh.
s: scale the number of replicas.
x: decode a Secret.
f: fullscreen. Tip: enter fullscreen mode before copying, to avoid | in copied text.
Ctrl-d: delete.
Ctrl-k: kill (no confirmation).
Ctrl-w: toggle wide columns. (Equivalent to kubectl ... -o wide)
Ctrl-z: toggle error state
Ctrl-e: hide header.
Ctrl-s: save output (e.g. the YAML) to disk.
Ctrl-l: rollback.

Sort by Column

Shift-c: sorts by CPU.
Shift-m: sorts by MEMORY.
Shift-s: sorts by STATUS.
Shift-n: sorts by name;
Shift-o: sorts by node;
Shift-i: sorts by IP address;
Shift-a: sorts by container age;
Shift-t: sorts by number of restarts;
Shift-r: sorts by pod readiness;

Helm

:helm: show helm releases.
:helm NAMESPACE: show releases in a specific namespace.

XRay View

:xray RESOURCE, e.g. :xray deploy.

Pulse View

:pulse: displays general information about the Kubernetes cluster.

Popeye View

:popeye or pop: checks all resources for conformity with the correctness criteria and displays the resulting "rating" with explanations. https://popeyecli.io

Show Disk Files

:dir /path

E.g. :dir /tmp will show your /tmp folder on local disk. One common use case: Ctrl-s to save a yaml, then find it in :dir /tmp/k9s-screens-root, find the file, press e to edit and a to apply.

Quit

Esc: Bails out of view/command/filter mode.
:q or Ctrl-c: quit k9s.

Tips

Monitor what's going on:

:event (or ev): see the stream of events.
:pod
:job

k9s Warnings

E.g. memory level warning, to check CPU/Memory usage:

kubectl top nodes
kubectl top pods

Benchmark

k9s includes a basic HTTP load generator.

To enable it, you have to configure port forwarding in the pod. Select the pod and press SHIFT + f, go to the port-forward menu (using the pf alias).

After selecting the port and hitting CTRL + b, the benchmark would start. Its results are saved in /tmp for subsequent analysis.

To change the configuration of the benchmark, create the $HOME/.k9s/bench-<my_context>.yml file (unique for each cluster).

Configure k9s

Note that all YAML files in the .k9s directory must have the .yml extension (.yaml doesn’t work).

$HOME/.k9s/views.yml: customize the column view for resource lists.
$HOME/.k9s/plugin.yml: manage plugins.
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/config.yml: k9s config.
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/alias.yml: define your own alias.
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/hotkey.yml: define your own hotkeys.
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/plugin.yml: manage plugins.

Check Resources with the Same Name in Different API Groups

e.g. Cluster may be found in different api groups, like cluster.x-k8s.io or clusterregistry.k8s.io or baremetal.cluster.gke.io.

apiVersion: cluster.x-k8s.io/v1alpha3
kind: Cluster

apiVersion: clusterregistry.k8s.io/v1alpha1
kind: Cluster

apiVersion: baremetal.cluster.gke.io/v1
kind: Cluster

Use apiVersion/kind (i.e. Group/Version/kind) instead of just kind to check the API of a specific group.

:cluster.x-k8s.io/v1alpha3/clusters
:clusterregistry.k8s.io/v1alpha1/clusters
:baremetal.cluster.gke.io/v1/clusters

Change log setting

Change ~/.config/k9s/config.yml:

logger:
  tail: 500
  buffer: 5000
  sinceSeconds: -1

Plugins

https://github.com/derailed/k9s/tree/master/plugins

Install

# Go
$ go install github.com/derailed/k9s@latest

# Homebrew / LinuxBrew
$ brew install derailed/k9s/k9s

# MacPort
sudo port install k9s

# Snap
sudo snap install k9s

# PacMan
pacman -S k9s

# Windows: scoop
scoop install k9s

# Windows: chocolatey
choco install k9s