8.4. Install k9s#

The kubectl command is great and it does everything you need. But, it’s a cumbersome to type pod and service names. When you manage more than just a few pods you need a power tool that will help you spot problems and quickly run commands. There are a few tools that help with this but none of them are as good as k9s. In this lab we’ll install k9s and use it to browse our cluster.

Installation#

k9s is a single-file executable written in the Go programming language. To install it we’ll download a binary file from their GitHub release page. Since we’re installing k9s in your development environment you should download the Linux version of k9s.

  • If you’re on a PC, or Cloud Shell download k9s_Linux_amd64.tar.gz

  • If you’re on a M1 Mac download k9s_Linux_arm64.tar.gz

You can, of course, run k9s on your own machine outside of your dev container. To do so you’ll need to also install the native version of gcloud and kubectl.