Working With Kubernetes Deployments

When I first started working with Kubernetes Deployments, the defacto way to create a deployment was to write up some configuration into a YAML file and run kubectl --namespace=<somespace> apply -f <file>. This made it easy to make changes to the deployment later. Simply, make the required changes in the file and run kubectl --namespace=<somespace> apply -f <filename>. However, recently after following some Google Kubernetes Engine tutorials, I’ve gotten into a habit of creating deployments using the kubectl --namespace=<somespace> run command. I then realised that I needed to make some changes to the deployment and tried to export the configuration as YAML, make the change and apply it, but this resulted in a warning:

Warning: kubectl apply should be used on resource created by either kubectl create --save-config or kubectl apply

Since then, I’ve tried to find a way of using both methods interchangeably. For example, I’d like to first create a deployment with kubectl run and then later switch to updating it by modifying the YAML file and running kubectl --namespace=<somespace> apply. Recently, while reading the Kubernetes: Up and Running book by Joe Beda, Brendan Burns and Kelsey Hightower, I stumbled upon a way of converting a deployment created with kubectl run to a deployment that you can manipulate with a YAML config file and kubectl apply.

kubectl get deployments <deploymentname> --export -o yaml > <yaml filename>
kubectl replace -f <filename> --save-config 

You can then make changes to the config stored in and apply the changes with kubectl apply. I hope this is useful to anyone else who wants to switch between using these two methods to manage your Kubernetes deployments!