How to copy file from container in a pod in a spec

Question

Say I have, my-namespace -> my-pod -> my-container and I have a file located at my-container:/opt/tomcat/logs/catalina.2017-05-02.log. I have applied the below command to copy the file which isn't working,

kubectl cp my-namepace/my-pod:/opt/tomcat/logs/catalina.2017-05-02.log -c my-container .

Note: I have the tar binary on my container

Error:

tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
error: open .: is a directory

Answer 1

I found this usage the most convenient for me

kubectl cp /tmp/file <your_namespace>/<your_pod>:/tmp/newfile

and other direction

kubectl cp <your_namespace>/<your_pod>:/tmp/file /tmp/newfile

Answer 2

What you are asking kubectl to do is copy the file catalina.2017-05-02.log to the current context, but the current context is a directory. The error is stating that you can not copy a file to have the name of a directory.

Try giving the copied version of the file a name:

kubectl cp my-namepace/my-pod:/opt/tomcat/logs/catalina.2017-05-02.log -c my-container ./catalina.2017-05-02.log.

Answer 3

this works for me:

$(kubectl exec <pod-name> [-c <container-name>] -it -- cat <file-path>) > <local-file>

Answer 4

Following command kubectl cp NameSpace/POD_NAME:/DIR/FILE_NAME /tmp/ works for me.

Answer 5

I noticed it fails when you try to specify the namespace (both as a prefix to the pod identifier and by using -n option) Using the pod identifier alone works for me:

kubectl cp postgres-1111111111-11abc:/tmp/dump.csv dump

Answer 6

Remove "/" after ":" when specifying container file.

So this

kubectl cp my-namepace/my-pod:/opt/tomcat/logs/catalina.2017-05-02.log -c my-container .

will turn into this:

kubectl cp my-namepace/my-pod:opt/tomcat/logs/catalina.2017-05-02.log -c my-container .