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In this post, we will list and describe each commonly used category or component of Kubernetes (K8S) with appropriate <code class="gr kz la lb lc b">kubectl</code> commands for quick reference!
<code>kubectl</code> is a Kubernetes command-line tool that allows you to run commands against Kubernetes clusters. You can use <code>kubectl</code> to deploy applications, inspect and manage cluster resources, and view logs.
The descriptions are taken directly from the official documentation at <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">kubernetes.io</a>, and each will link to the appropriate documentation page should you require more information or a deeper dive.

<ul class="">
<li id="ed33" class="mo mp io kf b kg mq kj mr km ms kq mt ku mu ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#common-options">Common Options</a></li>
<li id="56e2" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#configuration-files-also-referred-to-as-manifest-or-yaml-files">Configuration Files (Manifest files)</a></li>
<li id="c317" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#cluster-management-and-context">Cluster Management &amp; Context</a></li>
<li id="247e" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#daemonsets">Daemonsets</a></li>
<li id="1af2" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#deployments">Deployments</a></li>
<li id="9752" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#events">Events</a></li>
<li id="aff3" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#logs">Logs</a></li>
<li id="8eb3" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#namespaces">Namespaces</a></li>
<li id="9066" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#nodes">Nodes</a></li>
<li id="596c" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#pods">Pods</a></li>
<li id="31ae" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#replication-controllers">Replication Controllers</a></li>
<li id="29bd" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#replicasets">ReplicaSets</a></li>
<li id="1633" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#secrets">Secrets</a></li>
<li id="2066" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#services">Services</a></li>
<li id="52d4" class="mo mp io kf b kg mz kj na km nb kq nc ku nd ky mv mw mx my gs" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cheat-sheet#service-accounts">Service Accounts</a></li>
</ul>
Anything that can be run via kubectl can be run within a Spacelift stack. Find out more about <a href="https://docs.spacelift.io/vendors/kubernetes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">how Spacelift works with Kubernetes</a>.

In kubectl you can specify optional flags for use with various commands.
<code class="gr kz la lb lc b">alias</code> &#8211; Set an alias for kubectl.

<code class="gr kz la lb lc b">-o=json</code> &#8211; Output format in JSON.

<code class="gr kz la lb lc b">-o=yaml</code> &#8211; Output format in YAML.

<code class="gr kz la lb lc b">-o=wide</code> &#8211; Output in the plain-text format with any additional information, and for pods, the node name is included.

<code class="gr kz la lb lc b">-n</code> &#8211; Alias for <code class="gr kz la lb lc b">namespace</code>.

<code class="gr kz la lb lc b">-f</code> &#8211; Filename, directory, or URL to files to use to create a resource.

<code class="gr kz la lb lc b">-l</code> &#8211; Filter using a specified label.

<code class="gr kz la lb lc b">-h</code> &#8211; Help for kubectl.

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/manage-kubernetes-objects/declarative-config/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Configuration Files</a> (Also referred to as Manifest or YAML Files.) &#8211; Kubernetes objects can be created, updated, and deleted by storing multiple object configuration files in a directory and using <code class="gr kz la lb lc b">kubectl apply</code> to recursively create and update those objects as needed. This method retains writes made to live objects without merging the changes back into the object configuration files. <code class="gr kz la lb lc b">kubectl diff</code> also gives you a preview of what changes <code class="gr kz la lb lc b">apply</code> will make.

<code>kubectl create -f &lt;configuration file&gt;</code>  &#8211; Create objects.
<code>kubectl create -f &lt;configuration file directory&gt;</code> &#8211; Create objects in all manifest files in a directory.
<code>kubectl create -f &lt;‘url’&gt;</code> &#8211; Create objects from a URL.
<code>kubectl delete -f &lt;configuration file&gt;</code> &#8211; Delete an object.
Read more about <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubectl-apply-vs-create" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kubectl Apply vs. Kubectl Create – What’s the Difference?</a>.

Cluster management refers to querying information about the K8S cluster itself.
<code>kubectl cluster-info</code> &#8211; Display endpoint information about the master and services in the cluster.
<code>kubectl version</code> &#8211; Display the Kubernetes version running on the client and server.
<code>kubectl config view</code> &#8211; Get the configuration of the cluster.
<code>kubectl config view -o jsonpath='{.users[*].name}'</code> &#8211; Get a list of users.
<code>kubectl config current-context</code> &#8211; Display the current context.
<code>kubectl config get-contexts</code> &#8211; Display a list of contexts.
<code>kubectl config use-context &lt;cluster name&gt;</code> &#8211; Set the default context.
<code>kubectl api-resources</code> &#8211; List the API resources that are available.
<code>kubectl api-versions</code> &#8211; List the API versions that are available.
<code class="gr kz la lb lc b">-A</code> &#8211; List pods, services, daemonsets, deployments, replicasets, statefulsets, jobs, and <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cronjob" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CronJobs</a> in all namespaces, not custom resource types. Note the alias for <code class="gr kz la lb lc b">--all-namespaces</code> is <code class="gr kz la lb lc b">-A</code>

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/daemonset/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Daemonsets</a> &#8211; A DaemonSet ensures that all (or some) Nodes run a copy of a Pod. As nodes are added to the cluster, Pods are added to them. As nodes are removed from the cluster, those Pods are garbage collected. Deleting a DaemonSet will clean up the Pods it created.
<code>kubectl get daemonset</code> &#8211; List one or more daemonsets.
<code>kubectl edit daemonset &lt;daemonset_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Edit and update the definition of one or more daemonset.
<code>kubectl delete daemonset &lt;daemonset_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Delete a daemonset.
<code>kubectl create daemonset &lt;daemonset_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Create a new daemonset.
<code>kubectl rollout daemonset</code> &#8211; Manage the rollout of a daemonset.
<code>kubectl describe ds &lt;daemonset_name&gt; -n &lt;namespace_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Display the detailed state of daemonsets within a namespace.

<ul>
<li style="list-style-type: none;">
<ul>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-tools" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26 Top Kubernetes Tools for Your K8s Ecosystem</a></li>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/how-to-maintain-operations-around-kubernetes-cluster" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How to Maintain Operations Around Kubernetes Cluster</a></li>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15 Kubernetes Best Practices to Follow</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/deployment/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Deployments</a> &#8211; A Deployment provides declarative updates for <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Pods</a> and <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/replicaset/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">ReplicaSets</a>. You describe a desired state in a Deployment, and the Deployment <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/architecture/controller/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Controller</a> changes the actual state to the desired state at a controlled rate. You can define Deployments to create new ReplicaSets, or to remove existing Deployments and adopt all their resources with new Deployments. See <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/statefulset-vs-deployment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">StatefulSet vs. Deployment</a>.
<code>kubectl get deployment</code> &#8211; List one or more deployments.
<code>kubectl describe deployment &lt;deployment_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Display the detailed state of one or more deployments.
<code>kubectl edit deployment &lt;deployment_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Edit and update the definition of one or more deployments on the server.
<code>kubectl create deployment &lt;deployment_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Create a new deployment.
<code>kubectl delete deployment &lt;deployment_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Delete deployments.
<code>kubectl rollout status deployment &lt;deployment_name&gt;</code> &#8211; See the rollout status of a deployment.
<code>kubectl set image deployment/&lt;deployment name&gt; &lt;container name&gt;=image:&lt;new image version&gt;</code> &#8211; Perform a rolling update (K8S default), set the image of the container to a new version for a particular deployment.
<code>kubectl rollout undo deployment/&lt;deployment name&gt;</code> &#8211; Rollback a previous deployment.
<code>kubectl replace --force -f &lt;configuration file&gt;</code> &#8211; Perform a replace deployment — Force replace, delete and then re-create the resource.
Read more about Kubernetes deployment strategies: <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-deployment-strategies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Different Types of Kubernetes Deployment Strategies (Examples)</a>

<code>kubectl get events</code> &#8211; List recent events for all resources in the system.
<code>kubectl get events --field-selector type=Warning</code> &#8211; List Warnings only.
<code>kubectl get events --sort-by=.metadata.creationTimestamp</code> &#8211; List events sorted by timestamp.
<code>kubectl get events --field-selector involvedObject.kind!=Pod</code> &#8211; List events but exclude Pod events.
<code>kubectl get events --field-selector involvedObject.kind=Node, involvedObject.name=&lt;node_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Pull events for a single node with a specific name.
<code>kubectl get events --field-selector type!=Normal</code> &#8211; Filter out normal events from a list of events.

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/system-logs/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Logs</a> &#8211; System component logs record events happening in cluster, which can be very useful for debugging. You can configure log verbosity to see more or less detail. Logs can be as coarse-grained as showing errors within a component, or as fine-grained as showing step-by-step traces of events (like HTTP access logs, pod state changes, controller actions, or scheduler decisions).
<code>kubectl logs &lt;pod_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Print the logs for a pod.
<code>kubectl logs --since=6h &lt;pod_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Print the logs for the last 6 hours for a pod.
<code>kubectl logs --tail=50 &lt;pod_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Get the most recent 50 lines of logs.
<code>kubectl logs -f &lt;service_name&gt; [-c &lt;$container&gt;]</code> &#8211; Get logs from a service and optionally select which container.
<code>kubectl logs -f &lt;pod_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Print the logs for a pod and follow new logs.
<code>kubectl logs -c &lt;container_name&gt; &lt;pod_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Print the logs for a container in a pod.
<code>kubectl logs &lt;pod_name&gt; pod.log</code> &#8211; Output the logs for a pod into a file named ‘pod.log’.
<code>kubectl logs --previous &lt;pod_name&gt;</code> &#8211; View the logs for a previously failed pod.

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/working-with-objects/namespaces/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Namespaces</a> &#8211; In Kubernetes, namespaces provides a mechanism for isolating groups of resources within a single cluster. Names of resources need to be unique within a namespace, but not across namespaces. Namespace-based scoping is applicable only for namespaced objects (e.g. Deployments, Services, etc) and not for cluster-wide objects (e.g. StorageClass, Nodes, <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-persistent-volumes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PersistentVolumes</a>, etc).
<code>kubectl create namespace &lt;namespace_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Create a namespace.
<code>kubectl get namespace &lt;namespace_name&gt;</code> &#8211; List one or more namespaces.
<code>kubectl describe namespace &lt;namespace_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Display the detailed state of one or more namespaces.
<code>kubectl delete namespace &lt;namespace_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Delete a namespace.
<code>kubectl edit namespace &lt;namespace_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Edit and update the definition of a namespace.
<code>kubectl top namespace &lt;namespace_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Display Resource (CPU/Memory/Storage) usage for a namespace.

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/architecture/nodes/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Nodes</a> &#8211; Kubernetes runs your workload by placing containers into Pods to run on Nodes. A node may be a virtual or physical machine, depending on the cluster. Each node is managed by the <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/glossary/?all=true#term-control-plane" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">control plane</a> and contains the services necessary to run <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Pods</a>. Typically you have several nodes in a cluster; in a learning or resource-limited environment, you might have only one node. The <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/components/#node-components" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">components</a> on a node include the <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/generated/kubelet" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">kubelet</a>, a <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/production-environment/container-runtimes" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">container runtime</a>, and the <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/command-line-tools-reference/kube-proxy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">kube-proxy</a>.
<code>kubectl taint node &lt;node_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Update the taints on one or more nodes.
<code>kubectl get node</code> &#8211; List one or more nodes.
<code>kubectl delete node &lt;node_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Delete a node or multiple nodes.
<code>kubectl top node &lt;node_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Display Resource usage (CPU/Memory/Storage) for nodes.
<code>kubectl get pods -o wide | grep &lt;node_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Pods running on a node.
<code>kubectl annotate node &lt;node_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Annotate a node.
<code>kubectl cordon node &lt;node_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Mark a node as unschedulable.
<code>kubectl uncordon node &lt;node_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Mark node as schedulable.
<code>kubectl drain node &lt;node_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Drain a node in preparation for maintenance.
<code>kubectl label node</code> &#8211; Add or update the labels of one or more nodes.

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Pods</a> &#8211; Pods are the smallest deployable units of computing that you can create and manage in Kubernetes. A Pod (as in a pod of whales or pea pod) is a group of one or more <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/containers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">containers</a>, with shared storage and network resources, and a specification for how to run the containers. A Pod’s contents are always co-located and co-scheduled, and run in a shared context. A Pod models an application-specific “logical host”: it contains one or more application containers which are relatively tightly coupled. In non-cloud contexts, applications executed on the same physical or virtual machine are analogous to cloud applications executed on the same logical host. As well as application containers, a Pod can contain <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/init-containers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">init containers</a> that run during Pod startup. You can also inject <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/ephemeral-containers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">ephemeral containers</a> for debugging if your cluster offers this.
<code>kubectl get pod</code> &#8211; List one or more pods.
<code>kubectl get pods --sort-by='.status.containerStatuses[0].restartCount'</code> &#8211; List pods Sorted by Restart Count.
<code>kubectl get pods --field-selector=status.phase=Running</code> &#8211; Get all running pods in the namespace.
<code>kubectl delete pod &lt;pod_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Delete a pod.
<code>kubectl describe pod &lt;pod_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Display the detailed state of a pods.
<code>kubectl create pod &lt;pod_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Create a pod.
<code>kubectl exec &lt;pod_name&gt; -c &lt;container_name&gt; &lt;command&gt;</code> &#8211; Execute a command against a container in a pod. Read more: <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubectl-exec" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Using Kubectl Exec: Connect to Your Kubernetes Containers</a>
<code>kubectl exec -it &lt;pod_name&gt; /bin/sh</code> &#8211; Get an interactive shell on a single-container pod.
<code>kubectl top pod</code> &#8211; Display Resource usage (CPU/Memory/Storage) for pods.
<code>kubectl annotate pod &lt;pod_name&gt; &lt;annotation&gt;</code> &#8211; Add or update the annotations of a pod.
<code>kubectl label pods &lt;pod_name&gt; new-label=&lt;label name&gt;</code> &#8211; Add or update the label of a pod.
<code>kubectl get pods --show-labels</code> &#8211; Get pods and show labels.
<code>kubectl port-forward &lt;pod name&gt; &lt;port number to listen on&gt;:&lt;port number to forward to&gt;</code> &#8211; Listen on a port on the local machine and forward to a port on a specified pod.

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/replicationcontroller/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Replication Controllers</a> &#8211; Note: A <code class="gr kz la lb lc b"><a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/deployment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Deployment</a></code> that configures a <code class="gr kz la lb lc b"><a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/replicaset/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">ReplicaSet</a></code> is now the recommended way to set up replication. A ReplicationController ensures that a specified number of pod replicas are running at any one time. In other words, a ReplicationController makes sure that a pod or a homogeneous set of pods is always up and available.
<code>kubectl get rc</code> &#8211; List the replication controllers.
<code>kubectl get rc --namespace=”&lt;namespace_name&gt;”</code> &#8211; List the replication controllers by namespace.

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/replicaset/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">ReplicaSets</a> &#8211; A ReplicaSet’s purpose is to maintain a stable set of replica Pods running at any given time. As such, it is often used to guarantee the availability of a specified number of identical Pods.
<code>kubectl get replicasets</code> &#8211; List ReplicaSets.
<code>kubectl describe replicasets &lt;replicaset_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Display the detailed state of one or more ReplicaSets.
<code>kubectl scale --replicas=[x]</code> &#8211; Scale a ReplicaSet.

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/secret/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Secrets</a> &#8211; A Secret is an object that contains a small amount of sensitive data such as a password, a token, or a key. Such information might otherwise be put in a <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Pod</a> specification or in a <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/glossary/?all=true#term-image" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">container image</a>. Using a Secret means that you don’t need to include confidential data in your application code.
<code>kubectl create secret</code> &#8211; Create a secret.
<code>kubectl get secrets</code> &#8211; List secrets.
<code>kubectl describe secrets</code> &#8211; List details about secrets.
<code>kubectl delete secret &lt;secret_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Delete a secret.

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/services-networking/service/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Services</a> &#8211; An abstract way to expose an application running on a set of <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Pods</a> as a network service. With Kubernetes you don’t need to modify your application to use an unfamiliar service discovery mechanism. Kubernetes gives Pods their own IP addresses and a single DNS name for a set of Pods, and can load-balance across them.
<code>kubectl get services</code> &#8211; List one or more services.
<code>kubectl describe services</code> &#8211; Display the detailed state of a service.
<code>kubectl expose deployment [deployment_name]</code> &#8211; Expose a replication controller, service, deployment, or pod as a new Kubernetes service.
<code>kubectl edit services</code> &#8211; Edit and update the definition of one or more services.

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/configure-pod-container/configure-service-account/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Service Accounts</a> &#8211; A service account provides an identity for processes that run in a Pod.
Note: This document is a user introduction to Service Accounts and describes how service accounts behave in a cluster set up as recommended by the Kubernetes project. Your cluster administrator may have customized the behavior in your cluster, in which case this documentation may not apply.
When you (a human) access the cluster (for example, using <code class="gr kz la lb lc b">kubectl</code>), you are authenticated by the apiserver as a particular User Account (currently this is usually <code class="gr kz la lb lc b">admin</code>, unless your cluster administrator has customized your cluster). Processes in containers inside pods can also contact the apiserver. When they do, they are authenticated as a particular Service Account (for example, <code class="gr kz la lb lc b">default</code>).
<code>kubectl get serviceaccounts</code> &#8211; List service accounts.
<code>kubectl describe serviceaccounts</code> &#8211; Display the detailed state of one or more service accounts.
<code>kubectl replace serviceaccount</code> &#8211; Replace a service account.
<code>kubectl delete serviceaccount &lt;service_account_name&gt;</code> &#8211; Delete a service account.

<a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/statefulset/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">StatefulSet</a> &#8211; StatefulSet is the workload API object used to manage stateful applications. Manages the deployment and scaling of a set of <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Pods</a>, and provides guarantees about the ordering and uniqueness of these Pods.
Like a <a class="au ld" href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/deployment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Deployment</a>, a StatefulSet manages Pods that are based on an identical container spec. Unlike a Deployment, a StatefulSet maintains a sticky identity for each of their Pods. These pods are created from the same spec, but are not interchangeable: each has a persistent identifier that it maintains across any rescheduling.
If you want to use storage volumes to provide persistence for your <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-workload" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kubernetes workload</a>, you can use a StatefulSet as part of the solution. Although individual Pods in a StatefulSet are susceptible to failure, the persistent Pod identifiers make it easier to match existing volumes to the new Pods that replace any that have failed.
<code>kubectl get statefulset</code> &#8211; List StatefulSet
<code>kubectl delete statefulset/[stateful_set_name] --cascade=false</code> &#8211; Delete StatefulSet only (not pods).

<a href="https://docs.spacelift.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Spacelift</a> helps you manage the complexities and compliance challenges of using Kubernetes. It brings with it a GitOps flow, so your Kubernetes Deployments are synced with your Kubernetes Stacks, and pull requests show you a preview of what they&#8217;re planning to change. It also has an extensive selection of <a href="https://docs.spacelift.io/concepts/policy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">policies</a>, which lets you <a href="https://docs.spacelift.io/concepts/policy/terraform-plan-policy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">automate compliance checks</a> and <a href="https://docs.spacelift.io/concepts/policy/trigger-policy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">build complex multi-stack workflows</a>. You can also use Spacelift to mix and match Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation, and Kubernetes Stacks and have them talk to one another. For example, you can set up Terraform Stacks to provision the required infrastructure (like an ECS/EKS cluster with all its dependencies) and then deploy the following via a Kubernetes Stack.
If you want to learn more about Spacelift, <a href="https://spacelift.io/free-trial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">create a free account today</a> or <a href="https://spacelift.io/schedule-demo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">book a demo with one of our engineers</a>.

When using K8S, cut to the chase and use a cheat sheet!
Cheers!

Spacelift is an alternative to using homegrown solutions on top of a generic CI. It helps overcome common state management issues and adds several must-have capabilities s for infrastructure management.

Transform your IaC management to scale securely, efficiently, and productively into the future.

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17 Kubernetes Best Practices Every Developer Should Know

What Is a Kubernetes Cluster? Key Components Explained

How to Install Kubernetes - 4 Different Ways [Step-by-Step]

See the helpful list of each commonly used category or component of Kubernetes (K8S) with appropriate kubectl commands for quick reference!

91-kubernetes-cheat-sheet

Kubernetes cheat sheet

Kubectl Cheat Sheet - 15 Kubernetes Commands & Objects

In this post, we will delve into Kubernetes (K8s) deployment concepts and some common strategies, looking at the advantages and disadvantages of each. A suitable deployment strategy enables you to minimize downtime, enhance your customer experience, and increase reliability when releasing your application.

A Kubernetes Deployment is a declarative statement usually configured in a YAML file that defines the application lifecycle and how updates to that application should be applied.
Deployment strategies control the behavior of Pod replacement when a new version of an application is released to ensure availability and minimal disruption. Kubernetes offers eight built-in strategies to manage how and when old Pods are replaced with new ones during updates. Each strategy addresses different business needs: high availability, risk mitigation, or testing. For example, RollingUpdate is ideal for production services requiring continuous uptime.
<h3>Types of Kubernetes Deployment Strategies</h3>
When deploying your applications to a <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cluster" target="_blank" rel="noopener">K8s cluster</a>, your chosen deployment strategy will determine how those applications are updated to a newer version from an older one. Some strategies will involve downtime. Some will introduce testing concepts and enable user analysis. There are two basic commonly used K8s deployment strategies we will look at in this post:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Recreate: Shuts down all existing Pods before starting new ones. Simple but causes downtime</li>
<li>Rolling Update (default): Gradually replaces old Pods with new ones, minimizing downtime 
</li>
</ul>
The following strategies are considered &#8220;Advanced deployment strategies&#8221; because the flow of traffic can be controlled in various ways:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Blue/Green: Deploys a new version (green) alongside the current (blue), then switches traffic once stable</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Canary: Sends a small percentage of traffic to the new version, gradually increasing after validation</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">A/B Testing: Routes traffic to different versions based on specific user segments or rules</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Ramped Slow Rollout: Slowly increases the number of Pods with the new version over time</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Shadow Deployment: Clones live traffic to a new version for testing without affecting users</li>
<li>Best-Effort Controlled Rollout: Attempts gradual rollout with intelligent backoff or analysis. It is not natively built into Kubernetes, but can be orchestrated using tools like Argo Rollouts or Flagger with metrics-based decision-making.</li>
</ul>
The default deployment strategy in Kubernetes is RollingUpdate. For workloads requiring zero downtime and version control, RollingUpdate is the most suitable default approach. However, there are certain use cases when this may not be appropriate.
The table below summarizes the differences between the eight Kubernetes deployment strategies:

<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Deployment strategy</td>
<td>Traffic shift model</td>
<td>Downtime risk</td>
<td>Rollback effort</td>
<td>Typical K8s primitives / tools</td>
<td>Ideal use cases</td>
<td>Key caveats</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Recreate</td>
<td>Cut‑then‑start – old Pods killed, then new Pods created</td>
<td>High (complete outage)</td>
<td>Very easy (just redeploy old image)</td>
<td><code>Deployment</code> with <code>strategy.type: Recreate</code></td>
<td>Quick lab environments; state‑reset migrations</td>
<td>Outage; fails health checks; hurts SLAs</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Rolling update</td>
<td>Gradual replace – new Pods added while old drain</td>
<td>Low (configurable)</td>
<td>Easy (roll back rev)</td>
<td>Default <code>Deployment</code> (RollingUpdate, maxSurge, maxUnavailable)</td>
<td>Standard production updates</td>
<td>Can mask errors until high % shipped; slower overall</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Ramped / Slow rollout</td>
<td>Same as Rolling, but intentionally throttled &amp; gated with pauses</td>
<td>Very low</td>
<td>Easy</td>
<td><code>kubectl rollout pause/resume</code>, Argo Rollouts “manual pause”, GitOps gates</td>
<td>Mission‑critical apps where metrics must be checked between waves</td>
<td>Ops overhead; requires release engineer on duty</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Blue‑green</td>
<td>All‑at‑once traffic switch between two identical fleets</td>
<td>Zero (if switch passes readiness)</td>
<td>Instant (DNS/service switch back)</td>
<td>Two <code>Deployments</code> + two Services; swap selector or use <code>Service</code> label update / Ingress weight 0→1</td>
<td>Major version jumps, DB schema swaps, compliance constraints</td>
<td>Doubles infra cost; stale “green” environment if not cleaned</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Best‑effort  controlled rollout</td>
<td>Rolling with aggressive <code>maxSurge + maxUnavailable</code> (e.g., 100%/100%)</td>
<td>Moderate (brief blips possible)</td>
<td>Easy</td>
<td>Plain <code>Deployment</code>; surge/unavailable tuned for speed</td>
<td>Large stateless fleets where speed &gt; strict uptime</td>
<td>May violate SLO if replicas drop below load peak</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Shadow deployment</td>
<td>Mirrored requests – new version gets copy of prod traffic, but responses aren’t served</td>
<td>Zero (users never see shadow)</td>
<td>None (nothing live)</td>
<td>Service mesh (Istio <code>TrafficMirroring</code>), Envoy filters, Telepresence</td>
<td>Perf/regression testing with prod‑like load; ML model validation</td>
<td>Double compute cost; must scrub PII in mirrored payloads</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Canary</td>
<td>Progressive % traffic to new Pods (e.g., 1%→10%→25%→100%)</td>
<td>Very low</td>
<td>Very easy (shift weight back)</td>
<td>Argo Rollouts, Flagger, Istio <code>VirtualService</code> weights</td>
<td>Feature launches, config changes, error‑budget‑aware orgs</td>
<td>Needs metrics &amp; alerting to automate promotion/abort</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>A/B testing</td>
<td>Traffic split by user/context attributes (headers, cookies, segments)</td>
<td>Very low</td>
<td>Moderate (need to retire user cohorts)</td>
<td>Service mesh or API‑gateway routing rules; Feature‑flag platforms</td>
<td>UX experiments, pricing/tests, ML model comparison</td>
<td>Requires analytics pipeline; can leak state between variants</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Let&#8217;s discuss each in more detail!
See how Spacelift can help you manage the complexities and compliance challenges of using Kubernetes with the newest <a href="https://docs.spacelift.io/vendors/kubernetes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kubernetes integration</a>. It brings with it a GitOps flow, so your Kubernetes Deployments are synced with your Kubernetes Stacks, and pull requests show you a preview of what they&#8217;re planning to change. It also has an extensive selection of <a href="https://docs.spacelift.io/concepts/policy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">policies</a>, which lets you <a href="https://docs.spacelift.io/concepts/policy/terraform-plan-policy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">automate compliance checks</a> and <a href="https://docs.spacelift.io/concepts/policy/trigger-policy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">build complex multi-stack workflows</a>.

Recreating deployment terminates all the pods and replaces them with the new version. This can be useful in situations where an old and new version of the application cannot run at the same time. The amount of downtime incurred using this strategy will depend on how long the application takes to shut down and start back up. The application state is entirely renewed since they are completely replaced.
An example Spec: section in the manifest file could look like this:

Rolling deployments are the default K8S offering designed to reduce downtime to the cluster. A rolling deployment replaces pods running the old version of the application with the new version without downtime.
To achieve this, Readiness probes are used:
<ul class="">
<li id="ec87" class="mp mq io kf b kg kh kj kk km mr kq ms ku mt ky mu mv mw mx gs" data-selectable-paragraph="">Readiness probes monitor when the application becomes available. If the probes fail, no traffic will be sent to the pod. These are used when an app needs to perform certain initialization steps before it becomes ready. An application may also become overloaded with traffic and cause the probe to fail, preventing more traffic from being sent to it and allowing it to recover.</li>
</ul>
Once the readiness probe detects the new version of the application is available, the old version of the application is removed. If there is a problem, the rollout can be stopped and rolled back to the previous version, avoiding downtime across the entire cluster. Because each pod is replaced one by one, deployments can take time for larger clusters. If a new deployment is triggered before another has finished, the version is updated to the version specified in the new deployment, and the previous deployment version is disregarded where it has not yet been applied.
A rolling deployment is triggered when something in the pod spec is changed, such as when the image, environment, or label of a pod is updated. A pod image can be updated using the command <code class="gr nj nk nl nf b">kubectl set image</code>.
The spec: -&gt; strategy: section of the manifest file can be used to refine the deployment by making use of two optional parameters — <code class="gr nj nk nl nf b">maxSurge</code> and <code class="gr nj nk nl nf b">maxUnavailable</code>. Both can be specified using a percentage or absolute number. A percentage figure should be used when Horizontal Pod Autoscaling is used.
<ul class="">
<li id="bbc5" class="mp mq io kf b kg kh kj kk km mr kq ms ku mt ky mu mv mw mx gs" data-selectable-paragraph="">MaxSurge specifies the maximum number of pods the Deployment is allowed to create at one time.</li>
<li id="87a3" class="mp mq io kf b kg my kj mz km na kq nb ku nc ky mu mv mw mx gs" data-selectable-paragraph="">MaxUnavailable specifies the maximum number of pods that are allowed to be unavailable during the rollout.</li>
</ul>
For example, the configuration below would specify a requirement for 10 replicas, with a maximum of 3 being created at any one time, allowing for 1 to be unavailable during the rollout:

Ramped Slow Rollout means the new version is rolled out slowly, creating new replicas replacing the old ones. This is also another term for a Canary deployment that we discuss later in the article.

<ul>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/provision-kubernetes-cluster-terraform-spacelift" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How to Provision Kubernetes Cluster with Spacelift and Terraform</a></li>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15 Kubernetes Best Practices to Follow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/ci-cd-tools" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Top Most Useful CI/CD Tools for DevOps</a></li>
</ul>

A <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/blue-green-deployment-kubernetes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blue-green deployment</a> involves deploying the new application version (green) alongside the old one (blue). A <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-load-balancer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">load balancer</a> in the form of the service selector object is used to direct the traffic to the new application (green) instead of the old one when it has been tested and verified. Blue/Green deployments can prove costly as twice the amount of application resources need to be stood up during the deployment period.
To enable this, we set up a service sitting in front of the deployments. For example, the service selector section of the manifest file for the blue deployment for an app called web-app with v1.0.0 could look like the below:

And the deployment for the blue web app:

When we want to direct traffic to the new (green) version of the app, we update the manifest to point to the new version, v2.0.0.

The deployment for the green app:

Read more: <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/terraform-blue-green-deployment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blue/Green Deployments With Terraform &amp; Kubernetes</a>

Blue / green deployments may also be referred to as ‘best-effort controlled rollouts’ — again, with the focus on updating your application or microservices with a focus on minimizing downtime and ensuring that the application remains available as much as possible during the deployment process.

Canary or ‘Ramped slow rollout’ strategies are sometimes used interchangeably with the term ‘Shadow Deployment’. 
A Shadow Deployment is a strategy where a new version of an application is deployed alongside the existing production version, primarily for monitoring and testing purposes. User traffic is not actively routed to the new version in a shadow deployment.

A Canary deployment can be used to let a subset of the users test a new version of the application or when you are not fully confident about the new version&#8217;s functionality. This involves deploying a new version of the application alongside the old one, with the old version of the application serving most users and the newer version serving a small pool of test users. The new deployment is rolled out to more users if it is successful.
For example, in a <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/provision-kubernetes-cluster-terraform-spacelift" target="_blank" rel="noopener">K8s cluster</a> with 100 running pods, 95 could be running v1.0.0 of the application, with 5 running the new v2.0.0 of the application. 95% of the users will be routed to the old version, and 5% will be routed to the new version. For this, we use 2 deployments side-by-side that can be scaled separately.
The spec section of the old application manifest would look like the following:

And the new application manifest:

In the example above, it might be impractical and costly to run 100 pods. A better way to achieve this is to use a load balancer such as <a class="au lo" href="https://www.nginx.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">NGINX</a>, <a class="au lo" href="http://www.haproxy.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">HAProxy</a>, or <a class="au lo" href="https://traefik.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Traefik</a>, or a <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/what-is-a-service-mesh" target="_blank" rel="noopener">service mesh</a> like <a class="au lo" href="https://istio.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Istio</a>, <a class="au lo" href="https://www.consul.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Hashicorps Consul</a>, or <a class="au lo" href="https://linkerd.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Linkrd</a>.
For painless and efficient maintenance of your K8s clusters, follow these <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15 Kubernetes Best Practices</a>.

Similar to a Canary deployment, using an A/B deployment, you can target a given subsection of users based on some target parameters (usually the HTTP headers or a cookie), as well as distribute traffic amongst versions based on weight. This technique is widely used to test the conversion of a given feature, and then the version that converts the most is rolled out.
This approach is usually taken based on data collected on user behavior and can be used to make better business decisions. Users are usually uninformed of the new features during the A/B testing period, so true testing can be done, and experiences between the users using the old version and those using the new version can be compared. Rollouts can be slower using A/B deployments due to the additional testing period and analysis of the user experience.
A/B deployments can be automated using <a class="au lo" href="https://istio.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Istio</a> and <a class="au lo" href="https://flagger.app/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">Flagger</a>, check out the <a class="au lo" href="https://docs.flagger.app/tutorials/istio-ab-testing" target="_blank" rel="noopener ugc nofollow">tutorial here</a> for more information on how to set it up.

In this article, we discussed eight common K8s deployment strategies. Having an understanding of how these can be used, the <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-tools" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kubernetes tools</a> that can be used to enable each of them, and the advantages and disadvantages of each is key when deciding how to deploy or upgrade your application to a newer version. Choosing the right strategy for your business needs can help reduce downtime, enable testing and improve the customer feedback loop enabling your team to develop a better product over time.
Cheers!

CI/CD Pipeline : Everything You Need To Know

Kubernetes CI/CD Pipelines – 8 Best Practices and Tools

Configuring Prometheus with Helm Chart on Kubernetes

Delve into different Kubernetes (K8s) deployment strategies. Take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each of them.

85-kubernetes-deployment-strategies

Kubernetes Deployment Strategies

8 Different Types of Kubernetes Deployment Strategies

Flavius Dinu

Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration system used to manage and deploy containerized applications. It can run on virtual or physical machines or be used as a service inside multiple cloud providers. Organizations of all sizes widely adopt Kubernetes, which has become the de facto standard for container orchestration.
In this article, we will take a look at what a Kubernetes cluster is. We will then look at the components of the master node and worker nodes that make up a K8s cluster.
What we will cover:
<ol>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cluster#what-is-a-kubernetes-cluster">What is a Kubernetes cluster?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cluster#what-are-the-components-of-a-kubernetes-cluster">What are the Kubernetes cluster components?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cluster#how-does-a-kubernetes-cluster-work">How does a Kubernetes cluster work?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cluster#how-to-create-a-kubernetes-cluster">How to create a Kubernetes cluster?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cluster#benefits-of-using-a-kubernetes-cluster">Benefits of using a Kubernetes cluster</a></li>
</ol>

A Kubernetes cluster is a group of machines (collection of nodes) that work together to run containerized applications. It consists of a control plane that manages the system and multiple worker nodes that run the actual application workloads.
The cluster handles tasks like scaling, load balancing, and self-healing automatically.
A K8s cluster is used to orchestrate containerized applications for better scalability and reliability, streamline CI/CD practices, and facilitate cloud-native application development and deployment across diverse environments.
<h3>What is a node in a Kubernetes cluster?</h3>
Nodes can be thought of as individual compute resources, so pretty much any group of compute resources can be used. Usually, nodes are made up of a group of virtual machines if the platform is running in the cloud behind the veil of a PaaS (Platform-as-a-service) offering. They can also be run on serverless engines, such as Amazon Fargate. If the Kubernetes cluster runs on-premises, nodes can be physical machines. You can even run a K8s cluster on a group of Raspberry Pis!
Kubernetes cluster also includes a control plane, which is responsible for the management and orchestration of the containers across the nodes and for maintaining the desired state.
If you want easy and efficient maintenance of your K8s cluster, see <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15 Kubernetes Best Practices Every Developer Should Know</a>.

<h3>What is the difference between a Kubernetes cluster and a node?</h3>
A Kubernetes node is a single machine inside a Kubernetes cluster and is responsible for running the containers that make up the applications deployed on the cluster. A K8s cluster contains one or more Kubernetes nodes.
<h3>What is the difference between a Kubernetes cluster and a pod?</h3>
A Kubernetes cluster is the overall system that manages containerized applications across multiple machines, while a pod is the smallest deployable unit within that system. 
In short, the cluster is the environment in which workloads run, and a pod is one of the fundamental building blocks used to deploy those workloads. Pods operate within the cluster, and clusters manage and orchestrate pods at scale.

A Kubernetes cluster architecture consists of a control plane and one or more worker nodes. The control plane manages the overall cluster state, scheduling, and coordination, while worker nodes run the containerized applications.  two types of nodes:, master nodes and worker nodes.
A Kubernetes control plane is responsible for managing the state and lifecycle of the cluster. It makes global decisions (e.g., scheduling) and responds to events (e.g., scaling pods, restarting failed containers). In production, the control plane runs across multiple nodes to ensure redundancy should one fail.
Worker nodes are so-called because they run pods. Pods are usually single instances of an application. Containers run inside pods, and Pods run on a node. Each cluster always contains at least one worker node. It is recommended that a cluster consists of at least three worker nodes for redundancy purposes.
Read more about <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-architecture" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kubernetes Architecture components</a>.

kubernetes-diagram

kubernetes diagram

Key components of the cluster control plane include:
<ul class="">
<li id="f6b3" class="mb mc ip jo b jp lv jt lw jx md kb me kf mf kj mg mh mi mj gt" data-selectable-paragraph="">API server (kube-apiserver)</li>
</ul>
The REST API acts as a front door to the control plane. Any requests for modifications to the Kubernetes cluster come through the API, as well as any requests from worker nodes. If the requests are valid the API server executes them. Communications with the cluster occur either via the REST API, or command-line tools like <code class="gs mk ml mm mn b">kubeadm</code> or <code class="gs mk ml mm mn b">kubectl.</code>
<ul class="">
<li id="4ccc" class="mb mc ip jo b jp jq jt ju jx mo kb mp kf mq kj mg mh mi mj gt" data-selectable-paragraph="">Scheduler (kube-scheduler)</li>
</ul>
The scheduler determines where resources will be deployed on which nodes within the K8s cluster. It does this by scheduling pods of containers across nodes and makes these decisions based on monitoring resource utilization. It places the resources on healthy nodes that can fulfill the requirements of the application.
<ul class="">
<li id="8415" class="mb mc ip jo b jp jq jt ju jx mo kb mp kf mq kj mg mh mi mj gt" data-selectable-paragraph="">Controller (kube-controller-manager)</li>
</ul>
The controller runs a number of background processes and also initiates any requested changes to the state. It ensures that the cluster state remains consistent. The controller can identify failed nodes and take action, and also runs jobs as required (jobs are one-time tasks). Also when a new namespace is created, this controller creates default accounts and API access tokens.
<ul class="">
<li id="b91a" class="mb mc ip jo b jp jq jt ju jx mo kb mp kf mq kj mg mh mi mj gt" data-selectable-paragraph="">Etcd (key-value store)</li>
</ul>
Configuration data about the state is stored in a key-value store that all nodes can access in the cluster. It is a critical component that is distributed and fault-tolerant. Etcd can be a target for malicious actors as it provides effective control over the cluster and should be secured.
<ul class="">
<li id="b465" class="mb mc ip jo b jp jq jt ju jx mo kb mp kf mq kj mg mh mi mj gt" data-selectable-paragraph="">Cloud Controller Manager (cloud-controller-manager)</li>
</ul>
An optional component, the cloud controller manager can be used to link the K8s API to the cloud provider API. Once linked, it can enable the Kubernetres cluster to scale horizontally. Components that interact with the cloud providers are separated from those that only interact with the K8s API to optimize performance.
Read more: <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-control-plane" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kubernetes Control Plane: What It Is &amp; How It Works</a>

Each worker node includes:
<ul class="">
<li id="1a6a" class="mb mc ip jo b jp lv jt lw jx md kb me kf mf kj mg mh mi mj gt" data-selectable-paragraph="">Pods &amp; Containers</li>
</ul>
Worker nodes are so-called because they run pods that do the work. Pods are usually single instances of the application itself. Containers run inside pods, Pods run on a node. If more resource is needed in the K8s cluster to run the workloads, more nodes can be added to the cluster.
<ul class="">
<li id="be33" class="mb mc ip jo b jp jq jt ju jx mo kb mp kf mq kj mg mh mi mj gt" data-selectable-paragraph="">Kubelet</li>
</ul>
Each worker node runs a small application called the <code class="gs mk ml mm mn b">kubelet</code>, which enables communication with the control plane. If the control plane needs to make any changes on the worker nodes, the request will go via the <code class="gs mk ml mm mn b">kubelet</code>.
<ul class="">
<li id="67c2" class="mb mc ip jo b jp jq jt ju jx mo kb mp kf mq kj mg mh mi mj gt" data-selectable-paragraph="">Kube-proxy</li>
</ul>
Each worker node also runs a component to control the networking, within and outside the cluster, called <code class="gs mk ml mm mn b">kube-proxy</code>. Traffic can be forwarded independently or using the Operating system packet filtering layer. It acts as a <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-load-balancer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">load balancer</a> and forwards requests from the control plane to the correct pods.

<ul>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/how-to-maintain-operations-around-kubernetes-cluster" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How to Maintain Operations Around Kubernetes Cluster</a></li>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15 Kubernetes Best Practices to Follow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/ci-cd-tools" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Top Most Useful CI/CD Tools for DevOps</a></li>
</ul>

A Kubernetes cluster has the desired state, usually defined using multiple YAML (or JSON) files.
The desired state means that rather than issuing specific individual instructions to the system, the desired end state is described, and Kubernetes decides which commands to issue to achieve the end goal.
The YAML files define things such as which pods to run, how many pods to run, and the number of resources the pods require. Requests are made to a K8s cluster through the K8s API, using <code class="gs mk ml mm mn b">kubectl</code> via the command line, or via the REST API.
You can also take a look at <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/how-to-maintain-operations-around-kubernetes-cluster" target="_blank" rel="noopener">how to maintain operations around the Kubernetes Cluster</a> and <a href="https://docs.spacelift.io/vendors/kubernetes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">how Kubernetes is integrated into Spacelift</a>. Spacelift helps you manage the complexities and compliance challenges of using Kubernetes. It brings with it a GitOps flow, so your Kubernetes Deployments are synced with your Kubernetes Stacks, and pull requests show you a preview of what they&#8217;re planning to change.

Creating a Kubernetes cluster can be a challenging task if you want to install all the components manually. If you’ve never done it before, the recommended approach is to follow through with one of <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/install-kubernetes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the installation processes</a> to get familiar with all of the components. 
On the other hand, if you want to get up and running quickly, <a href="https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/docs/user/quick-start/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Kind</a> might be a very easy solution to use on your local machine or a VM. It uses Docker containers to simulate Kubernetes nodes, making it possible to create and run a Kubernetes cluster with a single command. Additionally, Kind is compatible with many <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-tools" target="_blank" rel="noopener">popular Kubernetes tools</a>, including kubectl and Helm, making it easy to use in existing workflows. There are also other lightweight tools available for this, like <a href="https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/start/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Minikube</a> or <a href="https://k3s.io/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">K3s</a>. 
If you are using a Cloud Provider like AWS, Azure, GCP, or OCI, you can easily use their managed Kubernetes Services like <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/eks/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">EKS</a>, <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/kubernetes-service#:~:text=Azure%20Kubernetes%20Service%20(AKS)%20offers,edge%2C%20and%20multicloud%20Kubernetes%20clusters." target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">AKS</a>, <a href="https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">GKE</a>, and <a href="https://www.oracle.com/cloud/cloud-native/container-engine-kubernetes/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">OKE</a> in order to spin up a Kubernetes cluster in a couple of minutes.
<h3>Creating Kubernetes cluster &#8211; example</h3>
There are multiple ways in which you can create a K8s cluster:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Using the specific cloud service (Amazon EKS, Azure AKS, Google Kubernetes Engine, etc)</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Using <a href="https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/production-environment/tools/kubeadm/create-cluster-kubeadm/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">kubeadm</a></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Minikube</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Kind</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">K3s</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://microk8s.io/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">MicroK8s</a></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.rancher.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Rancher</a></li>
</ul>
Let’s create a Kubernetes cluster using Kind (Kubernetes in Docker).
First, you’ll need to ensure you have Docker and Golang installed on your machine. Then you need to start Docker, and after that, run the following commands:

In a couple of seconds, your K8s cluster will be ready.

Using a Kubernetes cluster provides automated, scalable, and resilient container orchestration for deploying and managing applications. It abstracts infrastructure complexity and enables consistent deployment across environments.
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Automated orchestration: Manages container deployment, scheduling, and scaling without manual intervention</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Self-healing: Automatically restarts failed containers, replaces unresponsive nodes, and ensures desired state</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Horizontal scaling: Adjusts application replicas dynamically based on resource usage or custom metrics</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Load balancing and service discovery: Built-in mechanisms distribute traffic and expose services reliably</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Declarative configuration: Uses YAML/JSON to define infrastructure and application states for repeatability</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Rolling updates and rollbacks: Enables zero-downtime deployments with version control of application updates</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Multi-cloud and hybrid support: Runs consistently across different environments and infrastructure providers</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">CI/CD integration: Works seamlessly with <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/devops-pipeline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DevOps pipelines</a> for automated testing, deployment, and monitoring</li>
</ul>

Understanding the components that make up a K8s cluster is important to give you the foundations in K8s operations. Knowing what each component of the cluster does aids in the operation, management, and troubleshooting of any issues that might arise with the cluster.
And if you aren’t already using Spacelift, <a href="https://spacelift.io/free-trial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sign up for a free trial</a>.

Spacelift is a flexible orchestration solution for IaC development. It delivers enhanced collaboration, automation and controls to simplify and accelerate the provisioning of cloud based infrastructures.

Enable Auto-Completion for Kubectl [Bash, Zsh, PowerShell]

Guide to Kubernetes Certification in 2025: Path, Exams & Cost

What is a Kubernetes cluster in simple terms? See the foundation of K8s operations and the components of the master node and worker nodes.

90-kubernetes-cluster

What is a Kubernetes Cluster?

In this post, I will explore some best practices for using Kubernetes (K8s) in production.
As the most popular container orchestration system, Kubernetes is the de facto standard for the modern cloud engineer to learn. However, K8s is notoriously complex to use and maintain, so knowing what you should and should not do and what is possible will help you get your deployment off to a solid start.
These recommendations cover common issues within three broad categories: application development, governance, and cluster configuration.
<h3 id="b48f" class="lq lr ip bn ls lt lu lv lw lx ly lz ma kn mb mc md kr me mf mg kv mh mi mj mk gt">Kubernetes Best Practices:</h3>
<ol class="">
<li id="d51a" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mn kk mo kn mp kr mq kv mr kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#1-use-namespaces" rel="">Use namespaces</a></li>
<li id="10ef" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#2-use-readiness-and-liveness-probes">Use readiness and liveness probes</a></li>
<li data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#3-use-autoscaling">Use autoscaling</a></li>
<li id="39ca" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#4-use-autoscaling">Use resource requests and limits</a></li>
<li id="b033" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#5-deploy-your-pods-as-part-of-a-deployment-daemonset-replicaset-or-statefulset-across-nodes">Deploy your Pods as part of a Deployment, DaemonSet, ReplicaSet or StatefulSet across nodes</a></li>
<li id="257b" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#6-use-multiple-nodes">Use multiple nodes</a></li>
<li id="3469" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#7-use-rolebased-access-control-rbac">Use Role-based access control (RBAC)</a></li>
<li id="3bde" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#8-host-your-kubernetes-cluster-externally-use-a-cloud-service">Host your Kubernetes cluster externally (use a cloud service)</a></li>
<li id="8020" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#9-upgrade-your-kubernetes-version">Upgrade your Kubernetes version</a></li>
<li id="aceb" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#10-monitor-your-cluster-resources-and-audit-policy-logs">Monitor your cluster resources and audit policy logs</a></li>
<li id="1c77" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#11-use-a-version-control-system">Use a version control system</a></li>
<li id="5eae" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#12-use-a-gitbased-workflow-gitops">Use a Git-based workflow (GitOps)</a></li>
<li id="00e8" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#13-reduce-the-size-of-your-containers">Reduce the size of your containers</a></li>
<li id="5459" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#14-organize-your-objects-with-labels">Organize your objects with labels</a></li>
<li id="8a71" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#15-use-network-policies">Use network policies</a></li>
<li id="eecf" class="ml mm ip kg b kh mw kk mx kn my kr mz kv na kz ms mt mu mv gt" data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#16-use-a-firewall">Use a firewall</a></li>
<li data-selectable-paragraph=""><a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-best-practices#16-use-declarative-configuration" rel="">Use declarative configuration</a></li>
</ol>

For security purposes, you should utilize Kubernetes namespaces to organize your objects and create logical partitions within your cluster. By default, a <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-cluster" target="_blank" rel="noopener">K8s cluster</a> has three namespaces: <code>default</code>, <code>kube-public</code>, and <code>kube-system</code>.
Role-based access control (RBAC) can be used to control access to particular namespaces and limit the blast radius of any mistakes that might occur. For example, a group of developers may have access to a namespace called <code>dev</code> and no access to the <code>production</code> namespace. The ability to limit different teams to different namespaces can be valuable to avoid duplicated work or resource conflict.
LimitRange objects can also be configured against namespaces to define the standard size for a container deployed in the namespace. ResourceQuotas can also be used to limit the total resource consumption of all containers inside a namespace. Network policies can be used against namespaces to limit traffic between pods.

Here’s a summary of the most important best practices for using Kubernetes namespaces:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Organize by environment – Use namespaces to separate environments such as <code>dev</code>, <code>staging</code>, and <code>prod</code> to ensure clear segmentation and prevent cross-environment interference.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Apply resource quotas – Assign resource quotas (e.g., CPU and memory limits) to namespaces to prevent one team or workload from consuming all cluster resources.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Use RBAC – Configure RBAC to control access at the namespace level, granting users or groups only the permissions they need.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Standardize naming conventions – Adopt consistent naming patterns for namespaces to simplify identification and management, such as <code>&lt;team&gt;-&lt;environment&gt;</code> or <code>&lt;project&gt;-&lt;use-case&gt;</code>.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Monitor and label – Label namespaces with additional metadata (e.g., owner, purpose) and enable logging/monitoring to track activity and usage trends.</li>
</ul>

To learn more, check out our <a href="https://spacelift.io/blog/kubernetes-namespaces" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Working with Kubernetes Namespaces</a> tutorial.

Follow the best practices for Kubernetes listed in this article for painless and efficient maintenance of your K8s cluster in production.

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