# $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/config.yml
k9s:
  # Represents ui poll intervals. Default 2secs
  refreshRate: 2
  # Number of retries once the connection to the api-server is lost. Default 15.
  maxConnRetry: 5
  # Enable mouse support. Default false
  enableMouse: true
  # Set to true to hide K9s header. Default false
  headless: false
  # Set to true to hide K9s crumbs. Default false
  crumbsless: false
  # Indicates whether modification commands like delete/kill/edit are disabled. Default is false
  readOnly: false
  # Toggles icons display as not all terminal support these chars.
  noIcons: false
  # Logs configuration
  logger:
    # Defines the number of lines to return. Default 100
    tail: 200
    # Defines the total number of log lines to allow in the view. Default 1000
    buffer: 500
    # Represents how far to go back in the log timeline in seconds. Setting to -1 will show all available logs. Default is 5min.
    sinceSeconds: 300
    # Go full screen while displaying logs. Default false
    fullScreenLogs: false
    # Toggles log line wrap. Default false
    textWrap: false
    # Toggles log line timestamp info. Default false
    showTime: false
  # Indicates the current kube context. Defaults to current context
  currentContext: minikube
  # Indicates the current kube cluster. Defaults to current context cluster
  currentCluster: minikube
  # Persists per cluster preferences for favorite namespaces and view.
  clusters:
    coolio:
      namespace:
        active: coolio
        favorites:
        - cassandra
        - default
      view:
        active: po
      featureGates:
        # Toggles NodeShell support. Allow K9s to shell into nodes if needed. Default false.
        nodeShell: false
      # Provide shell pod customization of feature gate is enabled
      shellPod:
        # The shell pod image to use.
        image: killerAdmin
        # The namespace to launch to shell pod into.
        namespace: fred
        # The resource limit to set on the shell pod.
        limits:
          cpu: 100m
          memory: 100Mi
      # The IP Address to use when launching a port-forward.
      portForwardAddress: 1.2.3.4
    kind:
      namespace:
        active: all
        favorites:
        - all
        - kube-system
        - default
      view:
        active: dp
  # The path to screen dump. Default: '%temp_dir%/k9s-screens-%username%' (k9s info) 
  screenDumpDir: /tmp

# $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/config.yml
k9s:
  clusters:
    # Configures node shell on cluster blee
    blee:
      featureGates:
        # You must enable the nodeShell feature gate to enable shelling into nodes
        nodeShell: true
      # You can also further tune the shell pod specification
      shellPod:
        image: cool_kid_admin:42
        namespace: blee
        limits:
          cpu: 100m
          memory: 100Mi

# $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/alias.yml
alias:
  pp: v1/pods
  crb: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1/clusterrolebindings

1. bozo::http – creates a pf on container bozo with port name http. If http specifies port number 8080 then the local port will be 8080 as well.
2. bozo::9090:http – creates a pf on container bozo mapping local port 9090->http(8080)
3. bozo::9090:8080 – creates a pf on container bozo mapping local port 9090->8080

Resource Custom Columns

SneakCast v0.17.0 on The Beach! – Yup! sound is sucking but what a setting!

You can change which columns shows up for a given resource via custom views. To surface this feature, you will need to create a new configuration file, namely $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/views.yml. This file leverages GVR (Group/Version/Resource) to configure the associated table view columns. If no GVR is found for a view the default rendering will take over (ie what we have now). Going wide will add all the remaining columns that are available on the given resource after your custom columns. To boot, you can edit your views config file and tune your resources views live!

NOTE: This is experimental and will most likely change as we iron this out!

Here is a sample views configuration that customize a pods and services views.

# $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/views.yml
k9s:
  views:
    v1/pods:
      columns:
        - AGE
        - NAMESPACE
        - NAME
        - IP
        - NODE
        - STATUS
        - READY
    v1/services:
      columns:
        - AGE
        - NAMESPACE
        - NAME
        - TYPE
        - CLUSTER-IP

Plugins

K9s allows you to extend your command line and tooling by defining your very own cluster commands via plugins. K9s will look at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/plugin.yml to locate all available plugins. A plugin is defined as follows:

• Shortcut option represents the key combination a user would type to activate the plugin
• Confirm option (when enabled) lets you see the command that is going to be executed and gives you an option to confirm or prevent execution
• Description will be printed next to the shortcut in the k9s menu
• Scopes defines a collection of resources names/short-names for the views associated with the plugin. You can specify all to provide this shortcut for all views.
• Command represents ad-hoc commands the plugin runs upon activation
• Background specifies whether or not the command runs in the background
• Args specifies the various arguments that should apply to the command above

K9s does provide additional environment variables for you to customize your plugins arguments. Currently, the available environment variables are as follows:

• $RESOURCE_GROUP — the selected resource group
• $RESOURCE_VERSION — the selected resource api version
• $RESOURCE_NAME — the selected resource name
• $NAMESPACE — the selected resource namespace
• $NAME — the selected resource name
• $CONTAINER — the current container if applicable
• $FILTER — the current filter if any
• $KUBECONFIG — the KubeConfig location.
• $CLUSTER the active cluster name
• $CONTEXT the active context name
• $USER the active user
• $GROUPS the active groups
• $POD while in a container view
• $COL- use a given column name for a viewed resource. Must be prefixed by COL-!

Example

This defines a plugin for viewing logs on a selected pod using ctrl-l for shortcut.

# $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/plugin.yml
plugin:
  # Defines a plugin to provide a `ctrl-l` shortcut to tail the logs while in pod view.
  fred:
    shortCut: Ctrl-L
    confirm: false
    description: Pod logs
    scopes:
    - pods
    command: kubectl
    background: false
    args:
    - logs
    - -f
    - $NAME
    - -n
    - $NAMESPACE
    - --context
    - $CONTEXT

NOTE: This is an experimental feature! Options and layout may change in future K9s releases as this feature solidifies.

Benchmark Your Applications

K9s integrates Hey from the brilliant and super talented Jaana Dogan. Hey is a CLI tool to benchmark HTTP endpoints similar to AB bench. This preliminary feature currently supports benchmarking port-forwards and services (Read the paint on this is way fresh!).

To setup a port-forward, you will need to navigate to the PodView, select a pod and a container that exposes a given port. Using SHIFT-F a dialog comes up to allow you to specify a local port to forward. Once acknowledged, you can navigate to the PortForward view (alias pf) listing out your active port-forwards. Selecting a port-forward and using CTRL-B will run a benchmark on that HTTP endpoint. To view the results of your benchmark runs, go to the Benchmarks view (alias be). You should now be able to select a benchmark and view the run stats details by pressing . NOTE: Port-forwards only last for the duration of the K9s session and will be terminated upon exit.

Initially, the benchmarks will run with the following defaults:

• Concurrency Level: 1
• Number of Requests: 200
• HTTP Verb: GET
• Path: /

The PortForward view is backed by a new K9s config file namely: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/bench-.yml (note: extension is yml and not yaml). Each cluster you connect to will have its own bench config file, containing the name of the K8s context for the cluster. Changes to this file should automatically update the PortForward view to indicate how you want to run your benchmarks.

Here is a sample benchmarks.yml configuration. Please keep in mind this file will likely change in subsequent releases!

# This file resides in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/bench-mycontext.yml
benchmarks:
  # Indicates the default concurrency and number of requests setting if a container or service rule does not match.
  defaults:
    # One concurrent connection
    concurrency: 1