How to switch kubectl clusters between gcloud and minikube

Question

I have Kubernetes working well in two different environments, namely in my local environment (MacBook running minikube) and as well as on Google\'s Container Engine (GCE, Kubern

Answer 1

Latest 2020 answer is here,

A simple way to switch between kubectl context,

kubectl top nodes **--context=**context01name

kubectl top nodes --context=context02name

You can also store the context name as env like context01name=gke_${GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT}_us-central1-a_standard-cluster-1

Answer 2

I got bored of typing this over and over so I wrote a simple bash utility to switch contexts

You can find it here https://github.com/josefkorbel/kube-switch

Answer 3

To get all context

C:\Users\arun>kubectl config get-contexts

To get current context

C:\Users\arun>kubectl config current-context

To switch context

C:\Users\arun>kubectl config use-context <any context name from above list>

Answer 4

The canonical answer of switching/reading/manipulating different kubernetes environments (aka kubernetes contexts) is, as Mark mentioned, to use kubectl config, see below:

$ kubectl config                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
Modify kubeconfig files using subcommands like "kubectl config set current-context my-context"

Available Commands:
  current-context Displays the current-context
  delete-cluster  Delete the specified cluster from the kubeconfig
  delete-context  Delete the specified context from the kubeconfig
  get-clusters    Display clusters defined in the kubeconfig
  get-contexts    Describe one or many contexts
  rename-context  Renames a context from the kubeconfig file.
  set             Sets an individual value in a kubeconfig file
  set-cluster     Sets a cluster entry in kubeconfig
  set-context     Sets a context entry in kubeconfig
  set-credentials Sets a user entry in kubeconfig
  unset           Unsets an individual value in a kubeconfig file
  use-context     Sets the current-context in a kubeconfig file
  view            Display merged kubeconfig settings or a specified kubeconfig file

Usage:
  kubectl config SUBCOMMAND [options]

Behind the scene, there is a ~/.kube/config YAML file that stores all the available contexts with their corresponding credentials and endpoints for each contexts.

Kubectl off the shelf doesn't make it easy to manage different kubernetes contexts as you probably already know. Rather than rolling your own script to manage all that, a better approach is to use a mature tool called kubectx, created by a Googler named "Ahmet Alp Balkan" who's on Kubernetes / Google Cloud Platform developer experiences Team that builds tooling like this. I highly recommend it.

https://github.com/ahmetb/kubectx

$ kctx --help                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
USAGE:
  kubectx                       : list the contexts
  kubectx <NAME>                : switch to context <NAME>
  kubectx -                     : switch to the previous context
  kubectx <NEW_NAME>=<NAME>     : rename context <NAME> to <NEW_NAME>
  kubectx <NEW_NAME>=.          : rename current-context to <NEW_NAME>
  kubectx -d <NAME> [<NAME...>] : delete context <NAME> ('.' for current-context)
                                  (this command won't delete the user/cluster entry
                                  that is used by the context)

  kubectx -h,--help         : show this message

Answer 5

A faster shortcut to the standard kubectl commands is to use kubectx:

• List contexts: kubectx
  • Equivalent to kubectl config get-contexts
• Switch context (to foo): kubectx foo
  • Equivalent to kubectl config use-context foo

To install on macOS: brew install kubectx

The kubectx package also includes a similar tool for switching namespaces called kubens.

These two are super convenient if you work in multiple contexts and namespaces regularly.

More info: https://ahmet.im/blog/kubectx/

Answer 6

TL;DR: I created a GUI to switch Kubernetes contexts via AppleScript. I activate it via shift-cmd-x.

I too had the same issue. It was a pain switching contexts by the command line. I used FastScripts to set a key combo (shift-cmd-x) to run the following AppleScript (placed in this directory: $(HOME)/Library/Scripts/Applications/Terminal).

use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions

do shell script "/usr/local/bin/kubectl config current-context"
set curcontext to result

do shell script "/usr/local/bin/kubectl config get-contexts -o name"
set contexts to paragraphs of result

choose from list contexts with prompt "Select Context:" with title "K8s Context Selector" default items {curcontext}
set scriptArguments to item 1 of result

do shell script "/usr/local/bin/kubectl config use-context " & scriptArguments

display dialog "Switched to " & scriptArguments buttons {"ok"} default button 1