day-to-day commands in minikube and KinD

 Minikube

docker context use default

docker context ls

minikube start 

minikube start --nodes 3

minikube start --driver=<driver name>   e.g. "docker" , "virtualbox" 

minikube config set driver <driver_name>

minikube profile list

minikube status

minikube delete --all --purge

minikube node add

kubectl get nodes

minikube node delete minikube-m02

kubectl get pods    <= get user created pods

kubectl get pods -n kube-system   <= get system created pods

//GET network pluggin

kubectl get pods -n kube-system | grep -E "net|cni|flannel|calico|cilium|kube-router|kindnet"

kubectl get nodes -o jsonpath='{.items[*].status.images[*].name}' | tr ' ' '\n' | grep -E "cni|kindnet|calico|flannel|cilium" | sort -u

minikube ssh "ls /etc/cni/net.d/"

If it returns 10-kindnet.conflist, your network plugin is Kindnet. (kindnet is default for minikube)

If it returns 10-calico.conflist or k8s.d/, it will list the respective active plugin.

kubectl get configmaps

kubectl get secrets

kubectl describe configmap <configmap-name>

kubectl describe node <node-name>

kubectl describe node minikube-m02

kubectl describe pods

kubectl describe nodes

To know what details k8s gives on executing a command, kubectl explain <resource> e.g. kubectl explain pods

kubectl api-resources

kubectl api-versions <= list all versions that can be used in "apiVersion" field of any yaml file.

=========================================================

KinD

kind --version

kind get clusters

kind create cluster 

by default kind creates a cluster named "kind", which appears as "kind-kind" on list of clusters. 

by default kind creates a cluster with  one control plane and two nodes. 

to create  named cluser : 

Creation should be done in "wsl -d Ubuntu" environment. this can be invoked through powershell.

kind create cluster --name mycluster

kind delete cluster --name mycluster

to alter the number of nodes created, create a yaml file and use it.

==================

my-kind-config.yaml

==================

kind: Cluster

apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1aplha4

nodes:

- role: control-plane

- role: worker

- role: worker

==================

NOTE: apiVersion is required, other wise you will get "unknown apiVersion" error. 

kind create cluster --name mycluster --config my-kind-config.yaml

kubectl get nodes

NAME                      STATUS     ROLES           AGE   VERSION

mycluster-control-plane   Ready   control-plane   22s   v1.33.1

mycluster-worker          Ready   <none>          10s   v1.33.1

mycluster-worker2         Ready   <none>          10s   v1.33.1

NOTE: even if you have both minikube and kind running, kind nodes will be seen in wsl only and minikube nodes from  PS/normal command prompt only. 

kubectl rollout restart daemonset prometheus-prometheus-node-exporter -n monitoring

daemonset.apps/prometheus-prometheus-node-exporter restarted

kubectl port-forward prometheus-grafana-649459765f-ncbxv  3000 -n monitoring

kubectl port-forward <pod-name> <host-computer-port> -n <namespace>

kubectl --namespace monitoring get secrets prometheus-grafana -o jsonpath="{.data.admin-password}" | base64 -d ; echo

helm list --all-namespaces

NAME            NAMESPACE       REVISION        UPDATED                                 STATUS          CHART                           APP VERSION

node-exporter   monitoring      1               2026-06-08 09:38:00.795361989 +0000 UTC deployed        prometheus-node-exporter-4.55.0 1.11.1

prometheus      monitoring      1               2026-06-08 09:23:33.520121361 +0000 UTC deployed        kube-prometheus-stack-86.2.0    v0.91.0