Installing kubectl
Next, we are going to install kubectl, the official Kubernetes CLI.
Despite the Educates CLI wrapping most of the needed functionality to interact with our
dedicated Educates cluster later-on, kubectl will come in handy whenever we want
to have a closer look at how things work within the platform.
kubectl is available from package managers for almost all common operating systems.
Installing kubectl on Linux
On the Debian, RedHat, and SUSE families of operating systems, kubectl
can be installed via native package management. On other Linux flavors, the release
binaries can be downloaded instead.
Installing kubectl with Native Package Managers
- Debian
- Red Hat
- SUSE
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl gnupg
curl -fsSL https://pkgs.k8s.io/core:/stable:/v1.31/deb/Release.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/kubernetes-apt-keyring.gpg
sudo chmod 644 /etc/apt/keyrings/kubernetes-apt-keyring.gpg
echo 'deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/kubernetes-apt-keyring.gpg] https://pkgs.k8s.io/core:/stable:/v1.31/deb/ /' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kubernetes.list
sudo chmod 644 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kubernetes.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y kubectl
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/kubernetes.repo
[kubernetes]
name=Kubernetes
baseurl=https://pkgs.k8s.io/core:/stable:/v1.31/rpm/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://pkgs.k8s.io/core:/stable:/v1.31/rpm/repodata/repomd.xml.key
EOF
sudo yum install -y kubectl
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/zypp/repos.d/kubernetes.repo
[kubernetes]
name=Kubernetes
baseurl=https://pkgs.k8s.io/core:/stable:/v1.31/rpm/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://pkgs.k8s.io/core:/stable:/v1.31/rpm/repodata/repomd.xml.key
EOF
sudo zypper update
sudo zypper install -y kubectl
Installing kubectl from GitHub
kubectl can be installed from release binaries:
# For AMD64 / x86_64
[ $(uname -m) = x86_64 ] && curl -sSLO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
# For ARM64
[ $(uname -m) = aarch64 ] && curl -sSLO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/arm64/kubectl"
chmod +x kubectl
sudo mv kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
Installing kubectl on MacOS and Windows
On MacOS and Windows, kubectl can be installed with multiple available package managers:
- Homebrew
- Macports
- Choco
- Scoop
- WinGet
brew install kubectl
sudo port selfupdate
sudo port install kubectl
choco install kubernetes-cli
cd ~
mkdir .kube
cd .kube
New-Item config -type file
scoop install kubectl
cd ~
mkdir .kube
cd .kube
New-Item config -type file
winget install -e --id Kubernetes.kubectl
cd ~
mkdir .kube
cd .kube
New-Item config -type file
Testing kubectl
To test if the installation kubectl has been successful, spin up a terminal and
run the following command:
kubectl version --client
The output should look like this:
kubectl version --client
Client Version: v1.31.1
Kustomize Version: v5.4.2