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Kubernetes Cheat Sheet

Kubernetes (K8s) is a container orchestration platform for deploying, scaling, and operating containerized applications. This cheatsheet consolidates official Kubernetes documentation and common operational patterns into a single advanced reference.

Core Concepts

  • Cluster, Node, Pod
  • Namespace
  • Label / Selector
  • Annotation

kubectl Basics

kubectl version
kubectl cluster-info
kubectl config get-contexts
kubectl config use-context <context>
kubectl api-resources
kubectl explain pod.spec

Viewing Resources

kubectl get nodes
kubectl get pods -o wide
kubectl describe pod <pod>
kubectl top node
kubectl top pod

Workloads

kubectl create deployment web --image=nginx
kubectl scale deployment web --replicas=3
kubectl rollout status deployment web
kubectl rollout undo deployment web

Services & Networking

kubectl get svc
kubectl expose deployment web --port=80 --type=NodePort
kubectl get ingress

Config & Secrets

kubectl create configmap app-config --from-literal=env=prod
kubectl create secret generic db-secret --from-literal=user=admin

Storage

kubectl get pv
kubectl get pvc
kubectl get sc

Security (RBAC)

kubectl get roles --all-namespaces
kubectl get rolebindings --all-namespaces
kubectl get clusterroles

Logs & Debug

kubectl logs <pod>
kubectl exec -it <pod> -- /bin/sh
kubectl get events --sort-by=.metadata.creationTimestamp

Apply Workflow

kubectl apply -f app.yaml
kubectl delete -f app.yaml
kubectl diff -f app.yaml