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kubectl delete

Synopsis

Delete resources by file names, stdin, resources and names, or by resources and label selector.

JSON and YAML formats are accepted. Only one type of argument may be specified: file names, resources and names, or resources and label selector.

Some resources, such as pods, support graceful deletion. These resources define a default period before they are forcibly terminated (the grace period) but you may override that value with the --grace-period flag, or pass --now to set a grace-period of 1. Because these resources often represent entities in the cluster, deletion may not be acknowledged immediately. If the node hosting a pod is down or cannot reach the API server, termination may take significantly longer than the grace period. To force delete a resource, you must specify the --force flag. Note: only a subset of resources support graceful deletion. In absence of the support, the --grace-period flag is ignored.

IMPORTANT: Force deleting pods does not wait for confirmation that the pod's processes have been terminated, which can leave those processes running until the node detects the deletion and completes graceful deletion. If your processes use shared storage or talk to a remote API and depend on the name of the pod to identify themselves, force deleting those pods may result in multiple processes running on different machines using the same identification which may lead to data corruption or inconsistency. Only force delete pods when you are sure the pod is terminated, or if your application can tolerate multiple copies of the same pod running at once. Also, if you force delete pods, the scheduler may place new pods on those nodes before the node has released those resources and causing those pods to be evicted immediately.

Note that the delete command does NOT do resource version checks, so if someone submits an update to a resource right when you submit a delete, their update will be lost along with the rest of the resource.

After a CustomResourceDefinition is deleted, invalidation of discovery cache may take up to 6 hours. If you don't want to wait, you might want to run "kubectl api-resources" to refresh the discovery cache.

kubectl delete ([-f FILENAME] | [-k DIRECTORY] | TYPE [(NAME | -l label | --all)])

Examples

  # Delete a pod using the type and name specified in pod.json
  kubectl delete -f ./pod.json
  
  # Delete resources from a directory containing kustomization.yaml - e.g. dir/kustomization.yaml
  kubectl delete -k dir
  
  # Delete resources from all files that end with '.json'
  kubectl delete -f '*.json'
  
  # Delete a pod based on the type and name in the JSON passed into stdin
  cat pod.json | kubectl delete -f -
  
  # Delete pods and services with same names "baz" and "foo"
  kubectl delete pod,service baz foo
  
  # Delete pods and services with label name=myLabel
  kubectl delete pods,services -l name=myLabel
  
  # Delete a pod with minimal delay
  kubectl delete pod foo --now
  
  # Force delete a pod on a dead node
  kubectl delete pod foo --force
  
  # Delete all pods
  kubectl delete pods --all

Options

--all

Delete all resources, in the namespace of the specified resource types.
-A, --all-namespaces

If present, list the requested object(s) across all namespaces. Namespace in current context is ignored even if specified with --namespace.
--cascade string[="background"]     Default: "background"

Must be "background", "orphan", or "foreground". Selects the deletion cascading strategy for the dependents (e.g. Pods created by a ReplicationController). Defaults to background.
--dry-run string[="unchanged"]     Default: "none"

Must be "none", "server", or "client". If client strategy, only print the object that would be sent, without sending it. If server strategy, submit server-side request without persisting the resource.
--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.
-f, --filename strings

containing the resource to delete.
--force

If true, immediately remove resources from API and bypass graceful deletion. Note that immediate deletion of some resources may result in inconsistency or data loss and requires confirmation.
--grace-period int     Default: -1

Period of time in seconds given to the resource to terminate gracefully. Ignored if negative. Set to 1 for immediate shutdown. Can only be set to 0 when --force is true (force deletion).
-h, --help

help for delete
--ignore-not-found

Treat "resource not found" as a successful delete. Defaults to "true" when --all is specified.
-i, --interactive

If true, delete resource only when user confirms.
-k, --kustomize string

Process a kustomization directory. This flag can't be used together with -f or -R.
--now

If true, resources are signaled for immediate shutdown (same as --grace-period=1).
-o, --output string

Output mode. Use "-o name" for shorter output (resource/name).
--raw string

Raw URI to DELETE to the server. Uses the transport specified by the kubeconfig file.
-R, --recursive

Process the directory used in -f, --filename recursively. Useful when you want to manage related manifests organized within the same directory.
-l, --selector string

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

The length of time to wait before giving up on a delete, zero means determine a timeout from the size of the object
--wait     Default: true

If true, wait for resources to be gone before returning. This waits for finalizers.

--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
--cloud-provider-gce-l7lb-src-cidrs cidrs     Default: 130.211.0.0/22,35.191.0.0/16

CIDRs opened in GCE firewall for L7 LB traffic proxy & health checks
--cloud-provider-gce-lb-src-cidrs cidrs     Default: 130.211.0.0/22,209.85.152.0/22,209.85.204.0/22,35.191.0.0/16

CIDRs opened in GCE firewall for L4 LB traffic proxy & health checks
--cluster string

The name of the kubeconfig cluster to use
--context string

The name of the kubeconfig context to use
--default-not-ready-toleration-seconds int     Default: 300

Indicates the tolerationSeconds of the toleration for notReady:NoExecute that is added by default to every pod that does not already have such a toleration.
--default-unreachable-toleration-seconds int     Default: 300

Indicates the tolerationSeconds of the toleration for unreachable:NoExecute that is added by default to every pod that does not already have such a toleration.
--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.
--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

  • kubectl - kubectl controls the Kubernetes cluster manager

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Last modified April 18, 2024 at 6:36 PM PST: Update kubectl reference for v1.30 (a6ccd20be9)