Ability to set Namespace when switching contexts about kubectx

[ahmetb]

@jwhitcraft I just hacked a kubens tool. Can you try check out this branch, add it to your PATH and try kubens? https://github.com/ahmetb/kubectx/tree/wip-kubens I appreciate feedback.

[ahmetb]

@jwhitcraft Interesting idea. I don’t have a lot of daily experience with namespaces. It looks like if you want to associate a namespace with a context entry, you need to create a new context entry (or modify the existing context entry).

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but in your example, my-cluster would always be associated with the test-namespace. I can think of refactoring the kubectx alias functionality to accept a namespace argument like this:

kubectx prod=my-cluster
kubectx test=my-cluster:test-namespace

because there's no way to do kubectl config use-namespace today. What do you think of this?

[jwhitcraft]

@ahmetb, that works for me. Currently I do this in my bash script which allows me to keep the same context but change the active namespace at will.

function k8sns() {
    ctx=`kubectl config current-context`
    ns=$1

    // verify that the namespace exists
    ns=`kubectl get namespace $1 --no-headers --output=go-template={{.metadata.name}} 2>/dev/null`

    if [ -z "${ns}" ]; then
        echo "Namespace (${1}) not found, using default"
        ns="default"
    fi

    kubectl config set-context ${ctx} --namespace="${ns}"
}

[ahmetb]

@jwhitcraft I see, that's essentially modifying your context. But it should be fine. I have an alternative proposal:

We can ship an additional kubens script, just like kubectx it can list/auto-complete the namespaces active in the current context and modify the current context to use the namespace, like your script does. It would also provide switching back and forth between namespaces using kubens –.

Which solution do you like better, a separate tool, or aliasing feature charged with namespaces?

[jwhitcraft]

@ahmetb a seperate tool would be best the more and more i think about it.

[jwhitcraft]

@ahmetb I just got back to work and i'll get this setup today.

Thanks!

[ahmetb]

@jwhitcraft have you got any feedback?

[jwhitcraft]

@ahmetb, so far working well. nice job 👍

[ahmetb]

This can now be installed brew update && brew install kubectx --HEAD