How to Setup Kubectl Aliases with Kuberc (Native Method)

In this blog, you will learn how to set up kubectl aliases using Kubectl user preferences (kuberc) configuration file..

Before Kubernetes v1.33, we had to manually add kubectl aliases in .bashrc or .zshrc, mixing them with other shell configurations.

This was not a native solution. Starting with Kubernetes v1.33, we can now use a dedicated YAML file called kuberc to define aliases. Kubectl directly reads these aliases from the file, making configuration much cleaner

By the end of this blog, you will have learned

1. Setup the Kuberc on the local machine.
2. Configure aliases to interact with Kubernetes.
3. Test the configured aliases

To setup this, we need to update our Kubectl with appropriate version.

Upgrade kubectl to v1.33+

For this feature to work, the Kubectl version should be 1.33 or higher.

Visit the official kubectl documentation and upgrade kubectl to version 1.33 or later.

To validate the installed kubectl version, run the following command. Make sure the version is 1.33 or higher.

$ kubectl version  --client

Client Version: v1.33.1
Kustomize Version: v5.6.0

Once the version is confirmed, we can configure the Kuberc.

The configuration of the Kuberc involves the creation of files and adding alias configurations.

Enable Kuberc Feature

Kubectl will not automatically use the kuberc file even after we upgrade the version to 1.33.

To enable this, we need to set an environment variable.

export KUBECTL_KUBERC=true

Setting the value true is telling the Kubectl to use the kuberc for aliases.

Kuberc File Location

The default kuberc configuration file path is ~/.kube/kuberc

When you enable the Kuberc feature using the environment variable, Kubectl will look into the default location.

If you want to give a custom path, you need to use the --kuberc flag with the kubectl command to give the configuration path.

kubectl --kuberc <CUSTOM KUBERC CONFIG PATH> <COMMAND>

Create a Kuberc File

The kuberc configuration is also similar to the Kubernetes object manifest, which means the configuration has the apiVersion and the kind.

Create a YAML file in the home directory (~/.kube/kuberc)

vim ~/.kube/kuberc

Once the file is created, we can add our necessary aliases to it.

Example Kuberc Configuration

Here is the example structure of the kuberc YAML configuration.

apiVersion: kubectl.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Preference
aliases:
  - name: kgp           
    command: get        
    appendArgs:
      - pods            
  - name: klogs         
    command: logs       
    appendArgs:
      - --follow    
      - --tail=50           
  - name: crns          
    command: create namespace 
    appendArgs:
      - dev-project-01

overrides:
  - command: apply
    flags:
      - name: server-side
        default: "true"
  - command: delete
    flags:
      - name: interactive
        default: "true"
  - command: get
    flags:
      - name: output
        default: "yaml"
  - command: exec
    flags:
      - name: it

Since this is an beta feature of the configuration, the apiVersion is kubectl.config.k8s.io/v1beta1 and the kind is Preference

This indicates that the object is the user's preferences for kubectl.

Now, you need to understand the following two key configs in kuberc.

1. aliases

Here is what the parameters under aliases section mean.

• name --> The alias of the command that we want to use
• command --> Refers to what action should be performed, like get, apply or delete.
• appendArgs --> Refers to the object that we want to use with the action, like pods, deployments, secrets, etc.

In the kuberc configuration, we can override the alias.

2. Overrides

Ovverides modify default behavior of certain commands.

For example, the alias kgp runs kubectl get po. But what if I want to run,

kubectl get po my-pod -o yaml

This is where the override function comes in.

In the overrides section, you can define flags as key-value pairs to set conditions like output, server-side and interactive,

1. output - Show the output of the object in a specific format like JSON or YAML.
2. server-side - Execute the command without confirmation
3. interactive - Before execution, prompt for confirmation
4. it: Attach -it flags to exec commands

Now we have added our aliases to a file. But keep in mind, by default the kuberc feature is disabled on the system.

Validating Kuberc

Now, we have enabled the Kuberc feature and created the Kuberc configuration file in ~/.kube/kuberc.

We can try the aliases from the given configuration.

kubectl crns

The above command will create a new namespace named dev-project-01

Let's try another one from the override configuration.

kubectl delete ns dev-project-01 

This command will prompt for confirmation

The validation ensures that the Kuberc feature is successfully enabled.

Combining Kuberc with Shell Aliases and Autocompletion

We can still use the .bashrc or .zshrc along with kuberc for better convenience.

For example, set alias k=kubectl in .bashrc so that we can use k kgp instead of using kubectl kgp.

Also, if you customize only a few commands in kuberc we can use the rest of the aliases from the traditional one.

It works with autocompletion as well. So, simply pressing the Tab key will fill in the commands.

Disabling Kuberc

After the configuration, if you feel like you want to disable Kuberc temporarily, you can do that using the following variable.

export KUBERC=off

If you are using feature gate,

export KUBECTL_KUBERC=true

Conclusion

In this blog, we explored how to enable and configure the new kuberc feature to enable kubectl alias.

Using kuberc, you can define aliases in a clean, YAML-based configuration file instead of cluttering your shell profiles.

You can even version-control your kuberc files on GitHub for collaboration