Use default config

$ k9s

Use non-default kubeconfig

$ k9s --kubeconfig /path/to/kubeconfig

Use non-default context

$ k9s --context fooctx

Readonly

$ k9s --readonly

Check info (locations for configurations, logs, screen dumps)

$ k9s info

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 mapping

• 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.

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

• %CPU/R : Percentage of requested cpu
• %CPU/L : Percentage of limited cpu
• %MEM/R : Percentage of requested memory
• %MEM/L : Percentage of limited memory

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

$ kubectl top nodes
$ kubectl top pods

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).

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.

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 ~/.config/k9s/config.yml :

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