kubech (kubectl change)

Set kubectl contexts/namespaces per shell/terminal to manage multi Kubernetes cluster at the same time.

i.e. same as kubectx/kubens but per shell/terminal.

ToC

• Why
• Features
• Install
  • Bash
  • Zsh
• Usage
  • List available contexts
  • Switch context
  • List available namespaces
  • Switch namespace
• Notes
• To-do

Why

• If you manage multi K8s clusters, you will need a handy way to work more than one cluster at the same time.
• kubectx/kubens tools fix this problem but globally, that means all shells and terminals will have the same context/namespace.
• However, this is not helpful at all if you are actually working with multi clusters at the same time.
• Thus, kubech comes to fix this problem so you can set K8s cluster context/namespace per shell/terminal.

Features

• Each shell/terminal will have its own context (K8s cluster) or namespace!
• Easy to use! Just source it in your favorite shell.
• It works out of the box! No aliases, no extra customizations, it doesn't matter if you work with 1 or 100 K8s clusters!
• It still can be used along with other tools like kubectx/kubens.
• It doesn't change anything in ~/.kube/config file. So it works perfectly with static and dynamic kube config files.
• It supports extra kubectl config (in addition to ~/.kube/config).
• It supports autocomplete for contexts and namespaces.

Install

Clone this repo, then source kubech in your shell config file.

git clone https://github.com/DevOpsHiveHQ/kubech ~/.kubech

Bash

echo 'source ~/.kubech/kubech' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'source ~/.kubech/completion/kubech.bash' >> ~/.bashrc

Zsh

Completion for zsh with oh-my-zsh enabled.

echo 'source ~/.kubech/kubech' >> ~/.zshrc
ln -s ~/.kubech/completion/kubechn.zsh ~/.oh-my-zsh/completions/_kubechn.zsh
ln -s ~/.kubech/completion/kubechc.zsh ~/.oh-my-zsh/completions/_kubechc.zsh

Please make sure autoload -U compinit && compinit is added to ~/.zshrc if not please execute below command.

echo  'autoload -U compinit && compinit' >> ~/.zshrc

Usage

NOTE:
  - The command "kubech" is just a meta for other commands. So kubech does nothing by itself.
  - Also short names like "kchc/kchn/kchu" are available.

VARS:
  KUBECONFIG_SRC_DIR     : Set directory with extra kubectl config files to read in kubech commands.
                           This allow to have multiple config files in addition to
                           the one at "\$HOME/.kube/config".
                           Default: "$HOME/.kube/config.src.d"
  KUBECONFIG_DEST_DIR    : Set directory for temporary kubectl config files. The files
                           in this directory are auto-generated by kubech commands
                           and you don't need to interact with them or even change that var.
                           Default: "$HOME/.kube/config.dest.d"
  KUBECH_NAMESPACE_CHECK : Method used to check if namespace exists before switching to it.
                           The default lists all namespaces which can be slow in large
                           clusters. After kubernetes 1.22+ all namespaces have a label
                           that can be used to speed this up. Set to "label" to enable this.
                           Available options: "list", "label".
                           Default: "list"

USAGE:
  kubechc             : List all contexts
  kubechc <CONTEXT>   : Switch to context <CONTEXT>
  kubechn             : List all namespaces
  kubechn <NAMESPACE> : Switch to namespace <NAMESPACE>
  kubechu             : Unset the active context. This is just a safty net
                        to avoid applying config by mistake to the wrong cluster.

List available contexts

$ kubechc
k8s_cluster01
k8s_cluster02

Switch context

No need to write the full name, press tab for auto complete.

$ kubechc k8s_cluster01

List available namespaces

$ kubechn
default
kube-public
kube-system
monitoring

Switch namespace

No need to write the full name, press tab for auto complete.

$ kubechn monitoring

Notes

• This tools has been tested with bash 4.4 only. However it should work with other shells like zsh.
• It's recommended to use this tool with kube-ps1 so current cluster is more visible.
• It's still recommended to have kubectx/kubens to manage contexts/namespaces globally.

To-do

• Test it with older bash versions like bash v3 on MacOS.