Install kubectl¶

The Kubernetes command-line tool, kubectl, allows you to run commands against Kubernetes clusters.

With kubectl, users can create, modify, and delete Kubernetes resources such as pods, deployments, services, and namespaces.

Let's see how you can install kubectl on your operating system.

Step 1: Install Kubectl¶

Install kubectl on MacOS¶

You can install kubectl with homebrew as follows:

brew install kubectl

Install kubectl on Windows¶

Follow the official documentation on how to Install and Set Up kubectl on Windows. This will ensure you have the latest release installed on your system.

Install kubectl on Linux¶

1. Download the latest release with the command:

   curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
   

2. Validate the binary (optional):

   # Download the kubectl checksum file
   curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl.sha256"
   
   # Validate the kubectl binary against the checksum file
   echo "$(cat kubectl.sha256)  kubectl" | sha256sum --check
   

3. Install kubectl:

   sudo install -o root -g root -m 0755 kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
   

Step 2: Verify Kubectl Installation¶

Run the following command to verify if kubectl is installed:

kubectl version --client --output=yaml

The output should look similar to the below:

clientVersion:
  buildDate: "2022-06-27T22:22:16Z"
  compiler: gc
  gitCommit: b77d9473a02fbfa834afa67d677fd12d690b195f
  gitTreeState: clean
  gitVersion: v1.23.7-eks-4721010
  goVersion: go1.17.10
  major: "1"
  minor: 23+
  platform: linux/amd64