Accessing multiple Kubernetes clusters

This is my trick for configuring and switching between multiple kubernetes clusters. We’ll use myCluster as an example cluster name.

1. Have all of the kubectl acess files (YAML files) added into ~/.kube, and named myCluster.config.

2. Ensure that each of them have a readable and rememberable context name:

   apiVersion: v1
   clusters:
   - cluster:
       certificate-authority-data: [REDACTED]
       server: [REDACTED]
     name: [REDACTED]
   contexts:
   - context:
       cluster: [REDACTED]
       user: [REDACTED]
     name: myCluster
   current-context: myCluster
   kind: Config
   preferences: {}
   users:
   - name: [REDACTED]
     user:
       token: [REDACTED]

3. Ensure that when initializing your console, you reference those files and add them to the KUBECONFIG variable. I do this through a local-only file that I source from my dotFiles. Of course, this can be done programatically but you might not want access to clusters to be added dynamically to your console. Up to you.

   export KUBECONFIG=$KUBECONFIG:~/.kube/cluster1.config:~/.kube/myCluster.config

4. Setup a quick alias just to switch between clusters. I have this setup from my dotFiles.

   alias k='kubectl'
   alias kswitch='k config use-context'

5. Now just load a console and you can do:

   kswitch cluster1
   # Switched to context "cluster1".
    
   kswitch myCluster
   # Switched to context "myCluster".