Simple way to copy data in kubernetes containers

A quick post on how easy it is to copy files between kubernetes containers. How much you can make your life easier by using simple commands to copy data between containers and your computer.

Copy a file from kubernetes container to local machine

kubectl cp POD­_NAME:/mnt/test.txt /tmp/test.txt

If you don’t create everything in the default namespace, you should also give namespace name with the -n parameter:

kubectl cp POD­_NAME:/mnt/test.txt /tmp/test.txt -n NAMESPACE_NAME

Copy a file from local machine to kubernetes container

kubectl cp /tmp/test.txt POD­_NAME:/mnt/test.txt

kubectl cp /tmp/test.txt POD­_NAME:/mnt/test.txt -n NAMESPACE_NAME

This way you don’t need to do anything else. There is no need to add additional ports in the configuration, or install the ssh client /server.

If you have a POD that contains more than one container, you can select a specific container using -c:

kubectl cp /tmp/test.txt  POD­_NAME:/mnt/test.txt -c CONTAINER_NAME -n NAMESPACE_NAME

Kubernetes documentation can be found at https://kubernetes.io/docs/home/

You can find more articles related with Kubernetes in the kubernetes_en category https://lepczynski.it/en/category/k8s_en/

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