CLI Tools

The K3s binary contains a number of additional tools the help you manage your cluster.

Command Description

k3s server

Run a K3s server node, which launches the Kubernetes apiserver, scheduler, controller-manager, and cloud-controller-manager components, in addition a datastore and the agent components. See the k3s server command documentation for more information.

k3s agent

Run the K3s agent node, which launches containerd, flannel, kube-router network policy controller, and the Kubernetes kubelet and kube-proxy components. See the k3s agent command documentation for more information.

k3s kubectl

Run the embedded kubectl command. This is a CLI for interacting with the Kubernetes apiserver. If the KUBECONFIG environment variable is not set, this will automatically attempt to use the kubeconfig at /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml.

k3s crictl

Run the embedded crictl command. This is a CLI for interacting with Kubernetes’s container runtime interface (CRI). Useful for debugging.

k3s ctr

Run the embedded ctr command. This is a CLI for containerd, the container daemon used by K3s. Useful for debugging.

k3s token

Manage bootstrap tokens. See the k3s token command documentation for more information.

k3s etcd-snapshot

Perform on demand backups of the K3s cluster data and upload to S3. See the k3s etcd-snapshot command documentation for more information.

k3s secrets-encrypt

Configure K3s to encrypt secrets when storing them in the cluster. See the k3s secrets-encrypt command documentation for more information.

k3s certificate

Manage K3s certificates. See the k3s certificate command documentation for more information.

k3s completion

Generate shell completion scripts for k3s

k3s help

Shows a list of commands or help for one command