The purpose of kex is to provide an opinionated executor into a kubernetes container. Traditionally, if one wanted to exec into a kubernetes container, one had to kubectl get pods --namespace foo, visually identify the pod of interest, copy that pod to the buffer, and then kubectl --namespace foo exec -it <paste_buffer> bash to exec into the pod. Moreover, if the pod has n+1 containers, one had to identify the container of interest and pass this variable with the -c flag. This simple utility aims to provide a namespace-specific pod selector for quick execution.

kex

kex(1)

NAME
    kex - Quick k8s pod exec utility.

REQUIRES
    kubectl(1)

SYNOPSIS
    kex [OPTIONS]

DESCRIPTION
    kex is a quick kubernetes (k8s) utility to exec into a pod. kex prompts for:
    - <NAMESPACE> (defaults to current ns. See kubens(1))
    - <POD> (defaults to "1")
    - <CONTAINER> (If the pod has only one container, this prompt is omitted, and the "COMAND" prompt is presented.  
        If the pod has multiple containers, you will be prompted to select one.)
    - <COMMAND> (defaults to bash)
  ENTER to use defaults.

OPTIONS
    -h, --help
        Show this help message

SEE ALSO
    kubectx(1), kubens(1)

USAGE

$ kex
Namespace? (default qux):
    1 qux
    2 quux
    3 quuz
    4 corge
    5 grault
    6 garply
    7 waldo
    8 fred
    9 plugh
    10 xyzzy
    11 thud
4
Pod number? (default 1):
    1 foo-drupal: running
    2 bar-mariadb: running
    3 baz-alpine: pending
2
Container number? (default 1):
     1	mariadb
     2	sidecar
1
Command? (default bash)
mysql

Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
MariaDB [NAME]>

Installation

Use the Homebrew package manager:

brew tap farmotive/k8s
brew install kex

NOTE: If using gcloud sdk to manage the installation and versioning of kubectl, install with the --without-kubernetes-cli flag to omit the brew dependency:

brew install kex --without-kubernetes-cli

See farmotive homebrew k8s install section for more options.

Or simply grab the binary:

• Download the kex script
• Add it somewhere in your PATH
• Make it executable (chmod +x)

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Thanks to ahmetb for the inspiration!