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OKD CLI tools overview

OKD offers a set of command-line interface (CLI) tools that enable users to perform various administration and development operations from the terminal. These tools expose simple commands to manage the applications, as well as interact with each component of the system.

For example, you can use the CLI to complete the following operations:

  • Manage clusters

  • Build, deploy, and manage applications

  • Manage deployment processes

  • Create and maintain Operator catalogs

List of CLI tools

Manage your OKD cluster, applications, and Operators from the terminal by using primary command-line interface (CLI) tools.

The following list details these primary CLI tools:

  • OpenShift CLI (oc): This is the most commonly used CLI tool by OKD users. It helps both cluster administrators and developers to perform end-to-end operations across OKD using the terminal. Unlike the web console, it allows the user to work directly with the project source code using command scripts.

  • Kubernetes CLI (kubectl): OKD is conformant with Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Kubernetes and fully supports kubectl as a client. The OpenShift CLI (oc) is a superset of kubectl, where both CLI tools are included in the OKD clients download. You can use the standard kubectl commands against OKD clusters without any compatibility issues.

  • Knative CLI (kn): The Knative (kn) CLI tool provides simple and intuitive terminal commands that can be used to interact with OpenShift Serverless components, such as Knative Serving and Eventing.

  • Pipelines CLI (tkn): OpenShift Pipelines is a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) solution in OKD, which internally uses Tekton. The tkn CLI tool provides simple and intuitive commands to interact with OpenShift Pipelines using the terminal.

  • opm CLI: The opm CLI tool helps the Operator developers and cluster administrators to create and maintain the catalogs of Operators from the terminal.