cp
Copy files and directories to and from containers.
Command
$ kubectl cp <file-spec-src> <file-spec-dest>
Example
Current State
files in local machine. Also notice a file named simple.txt which is about to be copied to a pod named nginx-6db489d4b7-qkd5d
$ ls -l
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 1 2020 Desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6 Sep 21 03:51 simple.txt
files in a pod named nginx-6db489d4b7-qkd5d
$ kubectl exec nginx-6db489d4b7-qkd5d -- ls -al
total 84
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Sep 21 03:17 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Sep 21 03:17 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Sep 21 03:17 .dockerenv
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 8 07:00 bin
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jul 10 21:04 boot
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 360 Sep 21 03:17 dev
...
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Sep 8 07:00 usr
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Sep 8 07:00 var
Command
kubectl cp simple.txt nginx-6db489d4b7-qkd5d:.
Notice the . followed by nginx-6db489d4b7-qkd5d: this specifies the current directory .i.e., root, if you want to copy the file to another directory - you can use absolute path to paste it there.
Example: If you would like to copy simple.txt to /temp then use command
kubectl cp simple.txt nginx-6db489d4b7-qkd5d:./temp
Output
$ kubectl exec nginx-6db489d4b7-qkd5d -- ls -al
total 84
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Sep 21 03:17 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Sep 21 03:17 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Sep 21 03:17 .dockerenv
...
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6 Sep 21 03:54 simple.txt
...
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Sep 8 07:00 usr
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Sep 8 07:00 var
Install Tar
Copy requires that tar be installed in the container image.Local to Remote
Copy a local file to a remote Pod in a cluster.
- Local file format is
<path> - Remote file format is
<pod-name>:<path>
kubectl cp /tmp/foo_dir <some-pod>:/tmp/bar_dir
Remote to Local
Copy a remote file from a Pod to a local file.
- Local file format is
<path> - Remote file format is
<pod-name>:<path>
kubectl cp <some-pod>:/tmp/foo /tmp/bar
Specify the Container
Specify the Container within a Pod running multiple containers.
-c <container-name>
kubectl cp /tmp/foo <some-pod>:/tmp/bar -c <specific-container>
Namespaces
Set the Pod namespace by prefixing the Pod name with <namespace>/ .
<pod-namespace>/<pod-name>:<path>
kubectl cp /tmp/foo <some-namespace>/<some-pod>:/tmp/bar
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