[Kubernetes (K8S)] Lens: THE KUBERNETES IDE FOR MONITORING

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lens

Lens is the only IDE you’ll ever need to take control of your Kubernetes clusters. It’s built on open source and free. Download it today!

https://k8slens.dev/images/header-screenshot.png

Feature

An IDE designed for those who work with Kubernetes on a daily basis: Beautiful, polished and powerful

  • Remove Complexity

    Explore and navigate Kubernetes clusters without having to learn kubectl commands. Great for developers just getting started.

  • Real Time Observability

    Inspect live statistics, events, and log streams in real-time. No spinners, refreshing or waiting for screens to update.

  • Troubleshoot & Debug

    See errors and warnings on dashboard and click to see details. Click again to see logs or get a command line.

  • Run on Your Desktop

    Standalone application for MacOS, Windows and Linux. 1-minute install. No need to install anything in cluster.

  • Built on Open Source & Free

    Lens is built on open source with vibrant community and is backed by Kubernetes and cloud native ecosystem pioneers.

  • Works with Any Kubernetes

    Using EKS, AKS, GKE, Minikube, Rancher, k0s, k3s, OpenShift… ? They all work. Simply import the kubeconfigs for the clusters you want to work with.

Installation

macOS

    1. Download Lens for macOS - https://k8slens.dev/.
    1. Open the browser’s download list and locate the downloaded archive.
    1. Select the ‘magnifying glass’ icon to open the archive in Finder.
    1. Double-click Lens-{version}.dmg and drag Lens.app to the Applications folder, making it available in the macOS Launchpad.
    1. Add Lens to your Dock by right-clicking on the icon to bring up the context menu and choosing Options, Keep in Dock.

Or Install it via Homebrew (brew).

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% brew install --cask lens

Windows#

Linux

See the Lens Website - https://k8slens.dev/ for a complete list of available installation options.

After installing Lens manually (not using a package manager file such as .deb or .rpm) the following will need to be done to allow protocol handling. This assumes that your linux distribution uses xdg-open and the xdg-* suite of programs for determining which application can handle custom URIs.

    1. Create a file called lens.desktop in either ~/.local/share/applications/ or /usr/share/applications (if you have permissions and are installing Lens for all users).
    1. That file should have the following contents, with <path/to/executable> being the absolute path to where you have installed the unpacked Lens executable:
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[Desktop Entry]
Name=Lens
Exec=<path/to/executable> %U
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=lens
StartupWMClass=Lens
Comment=Lens - The Kubernetes IDE
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/lens;
Categories=Network;

Then run the following command:

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$ xdg-settings set default-url-scheme-handler lens lens.desktop

If that succeeds (exits with code 0) then your Lens install should be set up to handle lens:// URIs.

Snap

Lens is officially distributed as a Snap package in the Snap Store - https://snapcraft.io/store:

You can install it by running:

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$ sudo snap install kontena-lens --classic

References

[1] Lens | The Kubernetes IDE - https://k8slens.dev/

[2] lensapp/lens: Lens - The Kubernetes IDE - https://github.com/lensapp/lens

[3] lens — Homebrew Formulae - https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/lens

[4] The Missing Package Manager for macOS (or Linux) — Homebrew - https://brew.sh/

[5] Install Lens for Linux using the Snap Store | Snapcraft - https://snapcraft.io/kontena-lens

[6] Snap Store - https://snapcraft.io/store