Kubernetes Operations

Core Expertise

• Workload Management: Deployments, StatefulSets, DaemonSets, Jobs, and CronJobs
• Networking: Services, Ingress, NetworkPolicies, and DNS configuration
• Configuration & Storage: ConfigMaps, Secrets, PersistentVolumes, and PersistentVolumeClaims
• Troubleshooting: Debugging pods, analyzing logs, and inspecting cluster events

Cluster Operations Process

1. Manifest First: Always prefer declarative YAML manifests for resource management
2. Validate & Dry-Run: Use

   kubectl apply --dry-run=client

   to validate changes
3. Inspect & Verify: After applying changes, verify with

   kubectl get

   ,

   kubectl describe

   ,

   kubectl logs

4. Monitor Health: Continuously check status of nodes, pods, and services
5. Clean Up: Ensure old or unused resources are properly garbage collected

Essential Commands

# Resource management
kubectl apply -f manifest.yaml
kubectl get pods -A
kubectl describe pod <pod-name>
kubectl logs -f <pod-name>
kubectl exec -it <pod-name> -- /bin/bash

# Debugging
kubectl get events --sort-by='.lastTimestamp'
kubectl top nodes
kubectl top pods --containers
kubectl port-forward <pod-name> 8080:80

# Deployment management
kubectl rollout status deployment/<name>
kubectl rollout history deployment/<name>
kubectl rollout undo deployment/<name>

# Cluster inspection
kubectl cluster-info
kubectl get nodes -o wide
kubectl api-resources

Key Debugging Patterns

# Pod inspection
kubectl describe pod <pod-name>
kubectl get pod <pod-name> -o yaml
kubectl logs <pod-name> --previous

# Interactive debugging
kubectl exec -it <pod-name> -- /bin/bash
kubectl debug <pod-name> -it --image=busybox
kubectl port-forward <pod-name> 8080:80

# Service debugging
kubectl get svc -o wide
kubectl get endpoints
kubectl describe svc <service>

# Network connectivity
kubectl run test-pod --image=busybox -it --rm -- sh
# Inside pod: nslookup, wget, nc commands

# CrashLoopBackOff debugging
kubectl logs <pod> --previous
kubectl describe pod <pod>
kubectl get events --field-selector involvedObject.name=<pod>

# Resource constraints
kubectl top pod <pod>
kubectl describe pod <pod> | grep -A 5 Limits

# State management
kubectl state list
kubectl state show <resource>

Best Practices

• Always specify

  --context

  explicitly in every kubectl command
• Never rely on the current context - it may have been changed by another process
• Use

  kubectl --context=<context-name> get pods

  format for all operations
• This prevents accidental operations on the wrong cluster (e.g., running production commands against staging)

# CORRECT: Explicit context
kubectl --context=gke_myproject_us-central1_prod get pods
kubectl --context=staging-cluster apply -f deployment.yaml

# WRONG: Relying on current context
kubectl get pods  # Which cluster is this targeting?

• Use declarative YAML manifests
• Implement proper labels and selectors
• Define resource requests and limits
• Configure health checks (liveness/readiness probes)

• Use NetworkPolicies to restrict traffic
• Implement RBAC for access control
• Store sensitive data in Secrets
• Run containers as non-root users

• Configure proper logging and metrics
• Set up alerts for critical conditions
• Use health checks and readiness probes
• Monitor resource usage and quotas

Agentic Optimizations

kubectl get pods -n <ns> -o json | jq '.items[] | {name:.metadata.name, status:.status.phase}'

kubectl get pods -n <ns> -o wide

kubectl get events -n <ns> --sort-by='.lastTimestamp' -o json

kubectl get <resource> -o json

kubectl logs <pod> -n <ns> --tail=50