kubectl-netshoot

kubectl netshoot 🌠

A kubectl plugin for spinning up a netshoot container. netshoot is a network troubleshooting Swiss-army knife container which allows you to perform Kubernetes troubleshooting without installing any new packages in your containers or cluster nodes.

Installation

Just download the binary for your OS and architecture from the Releases page and place it in your PATH.

Usage

Usage:
  kubectl netshoot [command]

Available Commands:
  completion  Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
  debug       Debug using an ephemeral container in an existing pod or on a node
  help        Help about any command
  run         Run a throwaway pod for troubleshooting
  version     Print kubectl-netshoot version

Flags:
  -h, --help                           help for kubectl-netshoot
      --host-network                   ("run" command only) spin up netshoot on the host's network namespace
      --image-name string              netshoot container image to use (default "nicolaka/netshoot")
      --image-tag string               netshoot container image tag to use (default "latest")

In addition to these flags, the following kubectl flags are available for all kubectl netshoot commands:

Flags:
      --as string                      Username to impersonate for the operation. User could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace.
      --as-group stringArray           Group to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple groups.
      --as-uid string                  UID to impersonate for the operation.
      --cache-dir string               Default cache directory (default "$HOME/.kube/cache")
      --certificate-authority string   Path to a cert file for the certificate authority
      --client-certificate string      Path to a client certificate file for TLS
      --client-key string              Path to a client key file for TLS
      --cluster string                 The name of the kubeconfig cluster to use
      --context string                 The name of the kubeconfig context to use
      --disable-compression            If true, opt-out of response compression for all requests to the server
      --insecure-skip-tls-verify       If true, the server's certificate will not be checked for validity. This will make your HTTPS connections insecure
      --kubeconfig string              Path to the kubeconfig file to use for CLI requests.
      --match-server-version           Require server version to match client version
  -n, --namespace string               If present, the namespace scope for this CLI request
      --request-timeout string         The length of time to wait before giving up on a single server request. Non-zero values should contain a corresponding time unit (e.g. 1s, 2m, 3h). A value of zero means don't timeout requests. (default "0")
  -s, --server string                  The address and port of the Kubernetes API server
      --tls-server-name string         Server name to use for server certificate validation. If it is not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used
      --token string                   Bearer token for authentication to the API server
      --user string                    The name of the kubeconfig user to use

Examples

Each of the following commands will spin up a netshoot container with an interactive session and attach to it.

run command is equivalent to kubectl run --rm meaning that the pod will be deleted after you exit the session.

# spin up a throwaway pod for troubleshooting
kubectl netshoot run tmp-shell

# spin up a throwaway pod with a specific netshoot image
kubectl netshoot run tmp-shell --image-tag v0.5

# spin up a throwaway pod on the host's network namespace
kubectl netshoot run tmp-shell --host-network

debug command spins up netshoot as an ephemeral container in an existing pod or on a node. Ephemeral container terminates after the interactive session is exited.

# debug using an ephemeral container in an existing pod
kubectl netshoot debug my-existing-pod

# debug with a specific netshoot image
kubectl netshoot debug my-existing-pod --image-tag v0.5

# create a debug session on a node
# netshoot will run in the host namespaces and have host's filesystem mounted at /host
kubectl netshoot debug node/my-node

Instead of attaching to the shell, you can also run a one-time command directly on the netshoot container. The command you want to run is specified after --:

kubectl netshoot run tmp-shell -- ping 8.8.8.8

kubectl netshoot debug mypod -- curl localhost:8443

For more info on netshoot and provided tools please take a look at nicolaka/netshoot Github repo.

Troubleshooting with a custom container

By default, plugin spins up nicolaka/netshoot:latest container image, but flags --image-name and --image-tag allow for running an arbitrary container, eg.

kubectl netshoot run tmp-shell --image-name busybox --image-tag 1.36.0