kubectx | kubens

When you work on Kubernetes projects, there is a high chance of working with multiple kubernetes cluster contexts.

You might work on a local kubernetes kubeadm setup and other project clusters of different environments.

Working with different cluster contexts with kubectl is not a great experience. Here is where you can make use of kubectx and kubens utilities.

kubectx utility helps you switch between Multiple kubernetes cluster contexts with one command.

For example,

kubectx demo-clsuter

By default, when you use kubectl without the --namespace flag, it lists all the resources in the default namespace.

Similarly, to set a custom namespace a default, you can use kubens utility.

For example, If I have a namespace named devops-tools I can set it as default using kubens as shown below.

kubens devops-tools

Now, if you run kubectl to list pods or any resources, it will use the devops-tools namespace by default without adding --namepsace flag to the kubectlcommand.

Try Kubectl: https://github.com/ahmetb/kubectx

Now, if you say, I don’t want to install a separate plugin for this. Then, do the following.

alias kubens='kubectl config set-context --current --namespace '
alias kubectx='kubectl config use-context '

An alias will also do the trick!