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kubectl top

Synopsis

Display resource (CPU/memory) usage.

This command provides a view of recent resource consumption for nodes and pods. It fetches metrics from the Metrics Server, which aggregates this data from the kubelet on each node. The Metrics Server must be installed and running in the cluster for this command to work.

The metrics shown are specifically optimized for Kubernetes autoscaling decisions, such as those made by the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) and Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA). Because of this, the values may not match those from standard OS tools like 'top', as the metrics are designed to provide a stable signal for autoscalers rather than for pinpoint accuracy.

When to use this command:

  • For on-the-fly spot-checks of resource usage (e.g. identify which pods are consuming the most resources at a glance, or get a quick sense of the load on your nodes)
  • Understand current resource consumption patterns
  • Validate the behavior of your HPA or VPA configurations by seeing the metrics they use for scaling decisions.

It is not intended to be a replacement for full-featured monitoring solutions. Its primary design goal is to provide a low-overhead signal for autoscalers, not to be a perfectly accurate monitoring tool. For high-accuracy reporting, historical analysis, dashboarding, or alerting, you should use a dedicated monitoring solution.

kubectl top [flags]

Options

-h, --help

help for top

Parent Options Inherited

--as string

Username to impersonate for the operation. User could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace.

--as-group strings

Group to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple groups.

--as-uid string

UID to impersonate for the operation.

--cache-dir string     Default: "$HOME/.kube/cache"

Default cache directory

--certificate-authority string

Path to a cert file for the certificate authority

--client-certificate string

Path to a client certificate file for TLS

--client-key string

Path to a client key file for TLS

--cluster string

The name of the kubeconfig cluster to use

--context string

The name of the kubeconfig context to use

--disable-compression

If true, opt-out of response compression for all requests to the server

--insecure-skip-tls-verify

If true, the server's certificate will not be checked for validity. This will make your HTTPS connections insecure

--kubeconfig string

Path to the kubeconfig file to use for CLI requests.

--kuberc string

Path to the kuberc file to use for preferences. This can be disabled by exporting KUBECTL_KUBERC=false feature gate or turning off the feature KUBERC=off.

--match-server-version

Require server version to match client version

-n, --namespace string

If present, the namespace scope for this CLI request

--password string

Password for basic authentication to the API server

--profile string     Default: "none"

Name of profile to capture. One of (none|cpu|heap|goroutine|threadcreate|block|mutex)

--profile-output string     Default: "profile.pprof"

Name of the file to write the profile to

--request-timeout string     Default: "0"

The length of time to wait before giving up on a single server request. Non-zero values should contain a corresponding time unit (e.g. 1s, 2m, 3h). A value of zero means don't timeout requests.

-s, --server string

The address and port of the Kubernetes API server

--storage-driver-buffer-duration duration     Default: 1m0s

Writes in the storage driver will be buffered for this duration, and committed to the non memory backends as a single transaction

--storage-driver-db string     Default: "cadvisor"

database name

--storage-driver-host string     Default: "localhost:8086"

database host:port

--storage-driver-password string     Default: "root"

database password

--storage-driver-secure

use secure connection with database

--storage-driver-table string     Default: "stats"

table name

--storage-driver-user string     Default: "root"

database username

--tls-server-name string

Server name to use for server certificate validation. If it is not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used

--token string

Bearer token for authentication to the API server

--user string

The name of the kubeconfig user to use

--username string

Username for basic authentication to the API server

--version version[=true]

--version, --version=raw prints version information and quits; --version=vX.Y.Z... sets the reported version

--warnings-as-errors

Treat warnings received from the server as errors and exit with a non-zero exit code

See Also

1 - kubectl top node

Synopsis

Display resource (CPU/memory) usage of nodes.

The top-node command allows you to see the resource consumption of nodes.

kubectl top node [NAME | -l label]

Examples

  # Show metrics for all nodes
  kubectl top node
  
  # Show metrics for a given node
  kubectl top node NODE_NAME

Options

-h, --help

help for node

--no-headers

If present, print output without headers

-l, --selector string

Selector (label query) to filter on, supports '=', '==', '!=', 'in', 'notin'.(e.g. -l key1=value1,key2=value2,key3 in (value3)). Matching objects must satisfy all of the specified label constraints.

--show-capacity

Print node resources based on Capacity instead of Allocatable(default) of the nodes.

--show-swap

Print node resources related to swap memory.

--sort-by string

If non-empty, sort nodes list using specified field. The field can be either 'cpu' or 'memory'.

--use-protocol-buffers     Default: true

Enables using protocol-buffers to access Metrics API.

Parent Options Inherited

--as string

Username to impersonate for the operation. User could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace.

--as-group strings

Group to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple groups.

--as-uid string

UID to impersonate for the operation.

--cache-dir string     Default: "$HOME/.kube/cache"

Default cache directory

--certificate-authority string

Path to a cert file for the certificate authority

--client-certificate string

Path to a client certificate file for TLS

--client-key string

Path to a client key file for TLS

--cluster string

The name of the kubeconfig cluster to use

--context string

The name of the kubeconfig context to use

--disable-compression

If true, opt-out of response compression for all requests to the server

--insecure-skip-tls-verify

If true, the server's certificate will not be checked for validity. This will make your HTTPS connections insecure

--kubeconfig string

Path to the kubeconfig file to use for CLI requests.

--kuberc string

Path to the kuberc file to use for preferences. This can be disabled by exporting KUBECTL_KUBERC=false feature gate or turning off the feature KUBERC=off.

--match-server-version

Require server version to match client version

-n, --namespace string

If present, the namespace scope for this CLI request

--password string

Password for basic authentication to the API server

--profile string     Default: "none"

Name of profile to capture. One of (none|cpu|heap|goroutine|threadcreate|block|mutex)

--profile-output string     Default: "profile.pprof"

Name of the file to write the profile to

--request-timeout string     Default: "0"

The length of time to wait before giving up on a single server request. Non-zero values should contain a corresponding time unit (e.g. 1s, 2m, 3h). A value of zero means don't timeout requests.

-s, --server string

The address and port of the Kubernetes API server

--storage-driver-buffer-duration duration     Default: 1m0s

Writes in the storage driver will be buffered for this duration, and committed to the non memory backends as a single transaction

--storage-driver-db string     Default: "cadvisor"

database name

--storage-driver-host string     Default: "localhost:8086"

database host:port

--storage-driver-password string     Default: "root"

database password

--storage-driver-secure

use secure connection with database

--storage-driver-table string     Default: "stats"

table name

--storage-driver-user string     Default: "root"

database username

--tls-server-name string

Server name to use for server certificate validation. If it is not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used

--token string

Bearer token for authentication to the API server

--user string

The name of the kubeconfig user to use

--username string

Username for basic authentication to the API server

--version version[=true]

--version, --version=raw prints version information and quits; --version=vX.Y.Z... sets the reported version

--warnings-as-errors

Treat warnings received from the server as errors and exit with a non-zero exit code

See Also

2 - kubectl top pod

Synopsis

Display resource (CPU/memory) usage of pods.

The 'top pod' command allows you to see the resource consumption of pods.

Due to the metrics pipeline delay, they may be unavailable for a few minutes since pod creation.

kubectl top pod [NAME | -l label]

Examples

  # Show metrics for all pods in the default namespace
  kubectl top pod
  
  # Show metrics for all pods in the given namespace
  kubectl top pod --namespace=NAMESPACE
  
  # Show metrics for a given pod and its containers
  kubectl top pod POD_NAME --containers
  
  # Show metrics for the pods defined by label name=myLabel
  kubectl top pod -l name=myLabel

Options

-A, --all-namespaces

If present, list the requested object(s) across all namespaces. Namespace in current context is ignored even if specified with --namespace.

--containers

If present, print usage of containers within a pod.

--field-selector string

Selector (field query) to filter on, supports '=', '==', and '!='.(e.g. --field-selector key1=value1,key2=value2). The server only supports a limited number of field queries per type.

-h, --help

help for pod

--no-headers

If present, print output without headers.

-l, --selector string

Selector (label query) to filter on, supports '=', '==', '!=', 'in', 'notin'.(e.g. -l key1=value1,key2=value2,key3 in (value3)). Matching objects must satisfy all of the specified label constraints.

--show-swap

Print pod resources related to swap memory.

--sort-by string

If non-empty, sort pods list using specified field. The field can be either 'cpu' or 'memory'.

--sum

Print the sum of the resource usage

--use-protocol-buffers     Default: true

Enables using protocol-buffers to access Metrics API.

Parent Options Inherited

--as string

Username to impersonate for the operation. User could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace.

--as-group strings

Group to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple groups.

--as-uid string

UID to impersonate for the operation.

--cache-dir string     Default: "$HOME/.kube/cache"

Default cache directory

--certificate-authority string

Path to a cert file for the certificate authority

--client-certificate string

Path to a client certificate file for TLS

--client-key string

Path to a client key file for TLS

--cluster string

The name of the kubeconfig cluster to use

--context string

The name of the kubeconfig context to use

--disable-compression

If true, opt-out of response compression for all requests to the server

--insecure-skip-tls-verify

If true, the server's certificate will not be checked for validity. This will make your HTTPS connections insecure

--kubeconfig string

Path to the kubeconfig file to use for CLI requests.

--kuberc string

Path to the kuberc file to use for preferences. This can be disabled by exporting KUBECTL_KUBERC=false feature gate or turning off the feature KUBERC=off.

--match-server-version

Require server version to match client version

-n, --namespace string

If present, the namespace scope for this CLI request

--password string

Password for basic authentication to the API server

--profile string     Default: "none"

Name of profile to capture. One of (none|cpu|heap|goroutine|threadcreate|block|mutex)

--profile-output string     Default: "profile.pprof"

Name of the file to write the profile to

--request-timeout string     Default: "0"

The length of time to wait before giving up on a single server request. Non-zero values should contain a corresponding time unit (e.g. 1s, 2m, 3h). A value of zero means don't timeout requests.

-s, --server string

The address and port of the Kubernetes API server

--storage-driver-buffer-duration duration     Default: 1m0s

Writes in the storage driver will be buffered for this duration, and committed to the non memory backends as a single transaction

--storage-driver-db string     Default: "cadvisor"

database name

--storage-driver-host string     Default: "localhost:8086"

database host:port

--storage-driver-password string     Default: "root"

database password

--storage-driver-secure

use secure connection with database

--storage-driver-table string     Default: "stats"

table name

--storage-driver-user string     Default: "root"

database username

--tls-server-name string

Server name to use for server certificate validation. If it is not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used

--token string

Bearer token for authentication to the API server

--user string

The name of the kubeconfig user to use

--username string

Username for basic authentication to the API server

--version version[=true]

--version, --version=raw prints version information and quits; --version=vX.Y.Z... sets the reported version

--warnings-as-errors

Treat warnings received from the server as errors and exit with a non-zero exit code

See Also