ktop
A top-like tool for your Kubernetes cluster.
Following the tradition of Unix/Linux top tools, ktop is a tool that displays useful metrics information about nodes, pods, and other workload resources running in a Kubernetes cluster.
Features
- Insightful summary of cluster resource metrics
- Ability to work with or without a metrics-server deployed
- Displays nodes and pods usage metrics when a Metrics Server is found
- Uses your existing cluster configuration to connect to a cluster's API server
Installing ktop
kubectl ktop plugin
Project ktop is distributed as a kubectl plugin. To use ktop as a plugin do the followings:
- Install
krewplugin manager (if not present) - Ensure ktop is available to be installed:
kubectl krew search ktop - Next, install the plugin:
kubectl krew install ktop
Once installed, start the ktop plugin with
kubectl ktop
Download binary
Another easy way to get started with ktop is to download the pre-built binary (for your system):
Then, extract the ktop binary and copy it to your system's execution path.
Using go install
If you have a recent version of Go installed (1.14 or later) you can build and install ktop as follows:
go install github.com/vladimirvivien/ktop@latest
This should place the ktop binary in your configured $GOBIN path or place it in its default location, $HOME/go/bin.
Build from source
Download or clone the source (from GitHub). From the project's root directory, do the following:
go build .
The project also comes with a Go program that you can use for cross-platform builds.
go run ./ci/build.go
Running ktop
With a locally accessible kubeconfig file on your machine, ktop can be executed simply:
ktop
The previous command will use either environment variable $KUBECONFIG or the default path for the kubeconfig file. The program currently accepts the following arguments:
Usage:
ktop [flags]
Flags:
-A, --all-namespaces If true, display metrics for all accessible namespaces
--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 "/Users/vivienv/.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
-h, --help help for ktop
--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.
-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```
For instance, the following will show cluster information for workload resources associated with namespace my-app in context web-cluster using the default kubconfig file path:
ktop --namespace my-app --context web-cluster
ktop metrics
The ktop UI provides several metrics including a high-level summary of workload components installed on your cluster:
Usage metrics from metrics-server
ktop can display metrics with or without Metrics Server present. When a cluster has an instance of a kubernetes-sigs/metrics-server installed (and properly configured), ktop will automatically discover the server as shown:
With the metrics server installed, ktop will display resource utilization metrics as reported by the Metrics Server.
Request/limit metrics
When there is no Metrics Server present in the cluster, ktop will still work:
Instead of resource utilization, ktop will display resource requests and limits for nodes and pods.
Roadmap
- A multi-page UI to display metrics for additional components
- Display OOM processes
- Additional installation methods (Homebrew, linux packages, etc)
- Etc
