Kubernetes Debugging Cheat Sheet

Kubernetes Debugging•Permalink

Core kubectl troubleshooting commands for pods, deployments, services, events, logs, exec sessions, and ephemeral debugging.

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Cluster Triage

Check kubectl and server version

Show client and server version details.

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bashANYkubectlversiontriage

bash

kubectl version --short

Show cluster endpoints

Display the control plane and addon URLs known to kubectl.

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bashANYclustertriage

bash

kubectl cluster-info

List nodes

Quickly see whether nodes are Ready.

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bashANYnodestriage

bash

kubectl get nodes

List nodes with details

Show node IPs, versions, and roles.

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bashANYnodestriage

bash

kubectl get nodes -o wide

List all major resources

Quick cluster-wide snapshot across namespaces.

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bashANYtriageresources

bash

kubectl get all -A

List resource types

See which resource kinds the API server exposes.

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bashANYapitriage

bash

kubectl api-resources

Dump cluster diagnostic info

Collect broad cluster state for troubleshooting.

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bashANYclusterdiagnostics

bash

kubectl cluster-info dump

Pods and Workloads

List pods across all namespaces

Find failing pods anywhere in the cluster.

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bashANYpodstriage

bash

kubectl get pods -A

List pods with node and IP

Show placement and pod IP information.

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bashANYpodsplacement

bash

kubectl get pods -A -o wide

Get full pod YAML

Inspect raw spec and status fields.

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bashANYpodsyaml

bash

kubectl get pod <pod> -n <namespace> -o yaml

Describe a pod

Read conditions, events, mounts, image pulls, and restarts.

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bashANYpodsdescribe

bash

kubectl describe pod <pod> -n <namespace>

List deployments

Find workloads with rollout or availability issues.

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bashANYdeploymentsrollout

bash

kubectl get deployments -A

Describe a deployment

Inspect replica counts, rollout conditions, and selector details.

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bashANYdeploymentdescribe

bash

kubectl describe deployment <name> -n <namespace>

Check rollout status

Wait for or inspect deployment rollout progress.

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bashANYdeploymentrollout

bash

kubectl rollout status deployment/<name> -n <namespace>

List ReplicaSets

See which ReplicaSet a rollout created and whether scaling succeeded.

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bashANYreplicasetrollout

bash

kubectl get rs -n <namespace>

List StatefulSets

Inspect ordered pod creation and update status.

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bashANYstatefulsetworkloads

bash

kubectl get statefulsets -A

Describe a Job

Inspect failures, completions, and backoff behavior.

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bashANYjobsbatch

bash

kubectl describe job <name> -n <namespace>

Events and Conditions

List events in a namespace

See recent warnings and scheduling errors.

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bashANYeventswarnings

bash

kubectl get events -n <namespace>

Sort events by time

Show oldest to newest event timestamps for a namespace.

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bashANYeventstimeline

bash

kubectl get events -n <namespace> --sort-by=.metadata.creationTimestamp

Sort cluster-wide events by time

Helpful for cluster-wide incident triage.

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bashANYeventscluster

bash

kubectl get events -A --sort-by=.metadata.creationTimestamp

Wait for pod readiness

Use readiness conditions to gate troubleshooting steps or scripts.

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bashANYwaitready

bash

kubectl wait --for=condition=Ready pod/<pod> -n <namespace> --timeout=60s

List pod phase and reason

Compact custom columns view for triage.

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bashANYpodsconditions

bash

kubectl get pods -n <namespace> -o custom-columns=NAME:.metadata.name,PHASE:.status.phase,REASON:.status.containerStatuses[0].state.waiting.reason

Logs, Exec, and Ephemeral Debugging

Read pod logs

Print logs from a single-container pod.

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bashANYlogspods

bash

kubectl logs <pod> -n <namespace>

Read logs from a specific container

Required for multi-container pods.

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bashANYlogscontainers

bash

kubectl logs <pod> -n <namespace> -c <container>

Stream logs

Follow logs live while reproducing an issue.

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bashANYlogsstreaming

bash

kubectl logs -f <pod> -n <namespace>

Read previous container logs

Useful after restarts or CrashLoopBackOff.

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bashANYlogscrashloop

bash

kubectl logs <pod> -n <namespace> -p

Read logs for pods matching a label

Aggregate logs from a workload set.

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bashANYlogslabels

bash

kubectl logs -n <namespace> -l app=<label> --all-containers=true --prefix

Open a shell in a running container

Run commands inside a pod for live inspection.

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bashANYexecshell

bash

kubectl exec -it <pod> -n <namespace> -- /bin/sh

Inspect environment variables

Quickly validate environment and injected secrets names.

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bashANYexecenv

bash

kubectl exec <pod> -n <namespace> -- env

Copy a file from a pod

Pull logs or generated files out of a running container.

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bashANYcopyfiles

bash

kubectl cp <namespace>/<pod>:/path/in/pod ./local-file

Attach an ephemeral debug container

Launch a temporary debugging container in an existing pod.

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bashANYdebugephemeral-containers

bash

kubectl debug -it <pod> -n <namespace> --image=busybox:1.36 --target=<container>

Create a copy of a pod for debugging

Duplicate a pod and add a debug container or different command.

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bashANYdebugcopy-pod

bash

kubectl debug <pod> -n <namespace> --copy-to=<pod>-debug --container=debugger --image=busybox:1.36 -it

Port-forward to a pod

Reach a pod locally without exposing a Service.

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bashANYport-forwardpods

bash

kubectl port-forward pod/<pod> -n <namespace> 8080:80

JSONPath and Useful One-Liners

List pods with restart counts

Spot frequently restarting containers quickly.

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bashANYjsonpathrestarts

bash

kubectl get pods -A -o custom-columns=NS:.metadata.namespace,POD:.metadata.name,RESTARTS:.status.containerStatuses[*].restartCount

Show which node each pod runs on

Correlate pod failures with node placement.

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bashANYjsonpathplacement

bash

kubectl get pods -A -o custom-columns=NS:.metadata.namespace,POD:.metadata.name,NODE:.spec.nodeName

List images used by all pods

Find image tags currently running in the cluster.

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bashANYjsonpathimages

bash

kubectl get pods -A -o jsonpath='{..image}' | tr -s '[[:space:]]' '
' | sort | uniq -c

Show not-ready pods

Filter pods whose Ready condition is false or missing.

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bashANYpodsnot-ready

bash

kubectl get pods -A --field-selector=status.phase!=Running

Show pod CPU and memory usage

Requires metrics-server; useful for resource-based incidents.

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bashANYmetricsresources

bash

kubectl top pods -A

Show node CPU and memory usage

Identify hot or memory-constrained nodes.

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bashANYmetricsnodes

bash

kubectl top nodes

More in Kubernetes Debugging

Kubernetes Logs and Events Cheat Sheet

Find pod logs, previous container logs, event timelines, kube-system logs, and cluster incident evidence quickly.

Kubernetes Node Debugging Cheat Sheet

Diagnose node readiness, kubelet issues, pressure conditions, cordon/drain, and node-level debugging with kubectl debug.

Kubernetes Network Debugging Cheat Sheet

Debug Services, DNS, Ingress, network policies, connectivity, endpoints, and port-forwarding issues.

Kubernetes Pod Debugging Cheat Sheet

Troubleshoot Pending, CrashLoopBackOff, image pull, readiness, liveness, and init container problems.

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