No context found by kubectl when starting cluster with kind create cluster

[hakrac]

After starting the kind cluster with kind create cluster I tried connecting to the cluster with kubectl cluster-info --context kind-kind.
Unfortuntaly kubectl gave me the following error.

error: context "kind-kind" does not exist

Inspecting the contexts available to kubectl I only got my minikube instance.

CURRENT   NAME       CLUSTER    AUTHINFO   NAMESPACE
*         minikube   minikube   minikube   default

The error persisted even after removing minikube and clearing $HOME/.kube/config.

I am using

Ubuntu 20.04,
kind version 0.10.0,
kubectl client version 1.20.5,
kubectl server version 1.20.2

[hakrac]

I just found a workaround by appending the output of

sudo kind get kubeconfig

to $HOME/.kube/config.
Shouldn't this happen automatically?

[BenTheElder]

It should happen automatically. Is your kubeconfig not owned by the current user?

[BenTheElder]

Also sudo kind export kubeconfig is a less manual way to add it if not, but the fact that it worked with sudo suggests to me that the permissions are wrong on your kubeconfig file, you might need to chown it.

We should print an error / warning if this happens as well, if kind doesn't that's a bug in itself though we still need you to correct the permissions on the file or specify a different file to use.

[hakrac]

In my case $HOME/.kube/config is owned by the currenty active user who has read as well as write permisson.

[BenTheElder]

What about the directory?

[BenTheElder]

Are there any stray lock files?

[hakrac]

My .kube directory is owned by the active user.

I am currently executing all docker related commands as root user so this should not be the problem.

[BenTheElder]

I am currently executing all docker related commands as root user so this should not be the problem.

Ah, that explains it.

kubernetes has rules about where kubeconfig is written, it will default to under the current user.

if you run kind as root, it will likely write the kubeconfig under the root user's homedir then. we use the same lookup logic as kubectl. most likely there is a kubeconfig under the root's homedir with the kind configuration.

[BenTheElder]

you can do one of:

• add this kubeconfig to KUBECONFIG (which supports a list in all kubernetes tools following the spec)
• use --kubeconfig when calling kind or kubectl (and possibly chown after calling kind if you go that route)
• run kubectl as the same user as kind
• merge the kubeconfig with the kubeconfig under your user with KUBECONFIG="${ROOT_HOME}/.kube/config:~/.kube/config kubectl" config view --flatten >~/.kube/config (replace ${ROOT_HOME} with the root homedir)

[hakrac]

I solved the issue by adding my user to the docker group (to run docker without root privileges) and running kind create cluster.
Thanks;

[SmadusankaB]

kubectl config set-context kind-kind