Install kubectl on ubuntu (WSL) and use kubectl config from Windows

kubectl_ubuntu_wsl.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Receives your Windows username as only parameter.

curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/v1.16.0/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl
chmod +x ./kubectl
sudo mv ./kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl

windowsUser=$1

mkdir -p ~/.kube
ln -sf "/mnt/c/users/$windowsUser/.kube/config" ~/.kube/config

kubectl version

cool and useful

Fantastic. Works perfectly. Thank you!

Thanks

Nice solution. Thanks

cool

An alternative solution (Verified with Docker Desktop for Windows with WSL2)

Start WSL2 session (e.g. Ubuntu) and add into ~/.profile:

export KUBECONFIG=/mnt/c/users/$USER/.kube/config

Close and reopen WSL2 session to make bash re-read .profle file.

This makes kubectl executed in WSL2 to directly use kubectl config file from Windows host. No symlink required.

Instead of having to re-open your WSL2 windows shell you could simply reload your shell with: source ~/.profile

@xak2000 @S-Effendi @cmendible , How are you guys tricking the windows location of client-certificate & client-key in the config file.

nice work, thx~

This is great, very helpful! Thanks

i did the above steps but it says:
The connection to the server localhost:8080 was refused - did you specify the right host or port?

i did the above steps but it says: The connection to the server localhost:8080 was refused - did you specify the right host or port?

Check your .kube/config

My .kube/config file is empty

create an alias in WSL to reference the kubectl.exe in Windows

alias kubectl=/mnt/c/kubectl.exe

@sivabalan19 excute below commands after minikube start:
kubectl config set-credentials minikube
--client-certificate=/mnt/c/Users/$USER/.minikube/profiles/minikube/client.crt
--client-key=/mnt/c/Users/$USER/.minikube/profiles/minikube/client.key --embed-certs

kubectl config set-cluster minikube
--certificate-authority=/mnt/c/Users/$USER/.minikube/ca.crt --embed-certs

I enjoyed the script very much. As I searched for the latest version, I completed the task in this manner:

curl https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/stable.txt > ./stable.txt
export KUBECTL_VERSION=$(cat stable.txt)
curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/$KUBECTL_VERSION/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl
chmod +x ./kubectl
sudo mv ./kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
mkdir -p ~/.kube
ln -sf "/mnt/c/users/$USER/.kube/config" ~/.kube/config
rm ./stable.txt

Thanks! cool!

Thank you :)

If you're using devcontainers, you typically mount the WSL ~/.kube folder into the devcontainer for consistent k8s access, as here. Unfortunately, if the config file is a symlink, this does not work, as docker cannot follow the symlink in the mount. This can be corrected if you symlink the entire ~/.kube folder in WSL, rather than just the config file... Do you see any drawbacks to symlinking the whole folder?

I enjoyed the script very much. As I searched for the latest version, I completed the task in this manner:

curl https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/stable.txt > ./stable.txt
export KUBECTL_VERSION=$(cat stable.txt)
curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/$KUBECTL_VERSION/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl
chmod +x ./kubectl
sudo mv ./kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
mkdir -p ~/.kube
ln -sf "/mnt/c/users/$USER/.kube/config" ~/.kube/config
rm ./stable.txt

thanks to all and thanks @Marcos-br for your commands

Many thanks!! @Marcos-br