Using kubectl
Kubectl has built in support for managing contexts. After you add a context in ~/.kube/config file, manually or, via aws eks update-kubeconfig, you can use the config sub-command to switch between contexts.
To view all saved contexts and highlight the current one:
kubectl config get-contexts
To just view the current context:
kubectl config current-context
To switch to another context
kubectl config use-context <context-name>
To delete a context:
kubectl config delete-context <context-name>
Specific configuration file
Sometimes it might be the case that all the cluster connections cannot be in the same kube config file, but instead, user has separate kube config files per cluster.
To run kubectl with a specific configuration, one can use --kubeconfig argument:
kubectl --kubeconfig ./someConfig -n someNs get pods
Shell Aliases
And when running from Linux shell or windows powershell, one can also use "aliases".
Linux Bash example:
Use bash alias to define commands as aliases:
# Define a kubectl alias for specific cluster
alias myCluster="kubectl --kubeconfig ./myClusterConfig"
# Define a kubectl alias for specific cluster and specific namespace
alias myClusterNs="kubectl --kubeconfig ./myClusterConfig -n myNamespace"
Usage:
# Using cluster kubectl alias
myCluster -n myNamespace get pods
# Using cluster kubectl alias with namespace
myClusterNs get pods
The alias definitions can be saved to ~/.profile for permanent usage.
Windows Powershell example:
In Windows Powershell, a function can be defined as follows:
function myCluster { kubectl --kubeconfig .\myClusterConfig $args }
And used as:
myCluster -n myNamespace get pods
More arguments like -n <namespace> can also be specified in function definition before $args. Make sure to properly quote (") the arguments with special characters on windows.
