kubectl cp - Copy files and directories to and from containers

Options you will use

-c, --container=NAME

the container (default: the first one, or the kubectl.kubernetes.io/default-container annotation)

--no-preserve

do not keep ownership and permissions on the copy in the container

--retries=N

retry a broken transfer from the pod N times

Examples

$ kubectl cp dev/api-7d9f:/var/log/app.log ./app.log

pod -> local: give the destination a FILE name

$ kubectl cp ./fix.conf dev/api-7d9f:/tmp/fix.conf -c api

local -> pod, one container of several

$ kubectl exec api-7d9f -- cat /etc/app/app.yaml > app.yaml

the fallback when cp cannot work (symlinks, no tar)

Gotchas

• cp is tar over exec: tar cf - in the container (hence "tar: Removing leading `/' from member names" on stderr - harmless) and needs a tar binary in the image. Distroless images have none: exec: "tar": executable file not found in $PATH.
• Symlinks are skipped with a warning. ConfigMap and Secret volume files ARE symlinks (to ..data/KEY) - copy them with exec cat instead.
• Copying a single file to an existing local directory fails ("is a directory"): name the target file.
• Needs RBAC create on pods/exec, like kubectl exec.