---
title: kubectl describe
content_type: tool-reference
weight: 30
auto_generated: true
description: >-
  Show details of a specific resource or group of resources
no_list: true
---


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## {{% heading "synopsis" %}}


Show details of a specific resource or group of resources.

 Print a detailed description of the selected resources, including related resources such as events or controllers. You may select a single object by name, all objects of that type, provide a name prefix, or label selector. For example:

        $ kubectl describe TYPE NAME_PREFIX
        
 will first check for an exact match on TYPE and NAME_PREFIX. If no such resource exists, it will output details for every resource that has a name prefixed with NAME_PREFIX.

Use "kubectl api-resources" for a complete list of supported resources.

```
kubectl describe (-f FILENAME | TYPE [NAME_PREFIX | -l label] | TYPE/NAME)
```

## {{% heading "examples" %}}

```
  # Describe a node
  kubectl describe nodes kubernetes-node-emt8.c.myproject.internal
  
  # Describe a pod
  kubectl describe pods/nginx
  
  # Describe a pod identified by type and name in "pod.json"
  kubectl describe -f pod.json
  
  # Describe all pods
  kubectl describe pods
  
  # Describe pods by label name=myLabel
  kubectl describe pods -l name=myLabel
  
  # Describe all pods managed by the 'frontend' replication controller
  # (rc-created pods get the name of the rc as a prefix in the pod name)
  kubectl describe pods frontend
```

## {{% heading "options" %}}

   <table style="width: 100%; table-layout: fixed;">
<colgroup>
<col span="1" style="width: 10px;" />
<col span="1" />
</colgroup>
<tbody>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">-A, --all-namespaces</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>If present, list the requested object(s) across all namespaces. Namespace in current context is ignored even if specified with --namespace.</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--chunk-size int&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Default: 500</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Return large lists in chunks rather than all at once. Pass 0 to disable.</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">-f, --filename strings</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Filename, directory, or URL to files containing the resource to describe</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">-h, --help</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>help for describe</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">-k, --kustomize string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Process the kustomization directory. This flag can't be used together with -f or -R.</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">-R, --recursive</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Process the directory used in -f, --filename recursively. Useful when you want to manage related manifests organized within the same directory.</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">-l, --selector string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Selector (label query) to filter on, supports '=', '==', '!=', 'in', 'notin'.(e.g. -l key1=value1,key2=value2,key3 in (value3)). Matching objects must satisfy all of the specified label constraints.</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--show-events&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Default: true</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>If true, display events related to the described object. Defaults to true for a single object, false for multiple objects and prefix matching.</p></td>
</tr>

</tbody>
</table>



## {{% heading "parentoptions" %}}

   <table style="width: 100%; table-layout: fixed;">
<colgroup>
<col span="1" style="width: 10px;" />
<col span="1" />
</colgroup>
<tbody>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--as string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Username to impersonate for the operation. User could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace.</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--as-group strings</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Group to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple groups.</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--as-uid string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>UID to impersonate for the operation.</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--as-user-extra strings</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>User extras to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple values for the same key.</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--cache-dir string&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Default: "$HOME/.kube/cache"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Default cache directory</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--certificate-authority string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Path to a cert file for the certificate authority</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--client-certificate string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Path to a client certificate file for TLS</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--client-key string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Path to a client key file for TLS</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--cluster string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>The name of the kubeconfig cluster to use</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--context string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>The name of the kubeconfig context to use</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--disable-compression</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>If true, opt-out of response compression for all requests to the server</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--insecure-skip-tls-verify</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>If true, the server's certificate will not be checked for validity. This will make your HTTPS connections insecure</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--kubeconfig string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Path to the kubeconfig file to use for CLI requests.</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--kuberc string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Path to the kuberc file to use for preferences. This can be disabled by exporting KUBECTL_KUBERC=false feature gate or turning off the feature KUBERC=off.</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--match-server-version</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Require server version to match client version</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">-n, --namespace string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>If present, the namespace scope for this CLI request</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--password string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Password for basic authentication to the API server</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--profile string&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Default: "none"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Name of profile to capture. One of (none|cpu|heap|goroutine|threadcreate|block|mutex|trace)</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--profile-output string&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Default: "profile.pprof"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Name of the file to write the profile to</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--request-timeout string&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Default: "0"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>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.</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">-s, --server string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>The address and port of the Kubernetes API server</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--storage-driver-buffer-duration duration&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Default: 1m0s</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Writes in the storage driver will be buffered for this duration, and committed to the non memory backends as a single transaction</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--storage-driver-db string&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Default: "cadvisor"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>database name</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--storage-driver-host string&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Default: "localhost:8086"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>database host:port</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--storage-driver-password string&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Default: "root"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>database password</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--storage-driver-secure</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>use secure connection with database</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--storage-driver-table string&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Default: "stats"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>table name</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--storage-driver-user string&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Default: "root"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>database username</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--tls-server-name string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Server name to use for server certificate validation. If it is not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--token string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Bearer token for authentication to the API server</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--user string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>The name of the kubeconfig user to use</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--username string</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Username for basic authentication to the API server</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--version version[=true]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>--version, --version=raw prints version information and quits; --version=vX.Y.Z... sets the reported version</p></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td colspan="2">--warnings-as-errors</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td><td style="line-height: 130%; word-wrap: break-word;"><p>Treat warnings received from the server as errors and exit with a non-zero exit code</p></td>
</tr>

</tbody>
</table>



## {{% heading "seealso" %}}

* [kubectl](../kubectl/)	 - kubectl controls the Kubernetes cluster manager