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kubectl explain

Synopsis

Describe fields and structure of various resources.

This command describes the fields associated with each supported API resource. Fields are identified via a simple JSONPath identifier:

    <type>.<fieldName>[.<fieldName>]

Information about each field is retrieved from the server in OpenAPI format.

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

kubectl explain TYPE [--recursive=FALSE|TRUE] [--api-version=api-version-group] [--output=plaintext|plaintext-openapiv2]

Examples

  # Get the documentation of the resource and its fields
  kubectl explain pods
  
  # Get all the fields in the resource
  kubectl explain pods --recursive
  
  # Get the explanation for deployment in supported api versions
  kubectl explain deployments --api-version=apps/v1
  
  # Get the documentation of a specific field of a resource
  kubectl explain pods.spec.containers
  
  # Get the documentation of resources in different format
  kubectl explain deployment --output=plaintext-openapiv2

Options

--api-version string

Use given api-version (group/version) of the resource.
-h, --help

help for explain
--output string     Default: "plaintext"

Format in which to render the schema. Valid values are: (plaintext, plaintext-openapiv2).
--recursive

When true, print the name of all the fields recursively. Otherwise, print the available fields with their description.

--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
--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