kubectl port-forward

Synopsis

Forward one or more local ports to a pod.

Use resource type/name such as deployment/mydeployment to select a pod. Resource type defaults to 'pod' if omitted.

If there are multiple pods matching the criteria, a pod will be selected automatically. The forwarding session ends when the selected pod terminates, and a rerun of the command is needed to resume forwarding.

kubectl port-forward TYPE/NAME [options] [LOCAL_PORT:]REMOTE_PORT [...[LOCAL_PORT_N:]REMOTE_PORT_N]

Examples

  # Listen on ports 5000 and 6000 locally, forwarding data to/from ports 5000 and 6000 in the pod
  kubectl port-forward pod/mypod 5000 6000
  
  # Listen on ports 5000 and 6000 locally, forwarding data to/from ports 5000 and 6000 in a pod selected by the deployment
  kubectl port-forward deployment/mydeployment 5000 6000
  
  # Listen on port 8443 locally, forwarding to the targetPort of the service's port named "https" in a pod selected by the service
  kubectl port-forward service/myservice 8443:https
  
  # Listen on port 8888 locally, forwarding to 5000 in the pod
  kubectl port-forward pod/mypod 8888:5000
  
  # Listen on port 8888 on all addresses, forwarding to 5000 in the pod
  kubectl port-forward --address 0.0.0.0 pod/mypod 8888:5000
  
  # Listen on port 8888 on localhost and selected IP, forwarding to 5000 in the pod
  kubectl port-forward --address localhost,10.19.21.23 pod/mypod 8888:5000
  
  # Listen on a random port locally, forwarding to 5000 in the pod
  kubectl port-forward pod/mypod :5000

Options

--address strings     Default: "localhost"

Addresses to listen on (comma separated). Only accepts IP addresses or localhost as a value. When localhost is supplied, kubectl will try to bind on both 127.0.0.1 and ::1 and will fail if neither of these addresses are available to bind.
-h, --help

help for port-forward
--pod-running-timeout duration     Default: 1m0s

The length of time (like 5s, 2m, or 3h, higher than zero) to wait until at least one pod is running

Parent Options Inherited

--as string

Username to impersonate for the operation. User could be a regular user or a service account in a namespace.
--as-group strings

Group to impersonate for the operation, this flag can be repeated to specify multiple groups.
--as-uid string

UID to impersonate for the operation.
--cache-dir string     Default: "$HOME/.kube/cache"

Default cache directory
--certificate-authority string

Path to a cert file for the certificate authority
--client-certificate string

Path to a client certificate file for TLS
--client-key string

Path to a client key file for TLS
--cluster string

The name of the kubeconfig cluster to use
--context string

The name of the kubeconfig context to use
--disable-compression

If true, opt-out of response compression for all requests to the server
--insecure-skip-tls-verify

If true, the server's certificate will not be checked for validity. This will make your HTTPS connections insecure
--kubeconfig string

Path to the kubeconfig file to use for CLI requests.
--kuberc string

Path to the kuberc file to use for preferences. This can be disabled by exporting KUBECTL_KUBERC=false feature gate or turning off the feature KUBERC=off.
--match-server-version

Require server version to match client version
-n, --namespace string

If present, the namespace scope for this CLI request
--password string

Password for basic authentication to the API server
--profile string     Default: "none"

Name of profile to capture. One of (none|cpu|heap|goroutine|threadcreate|block|mutex)
--profile-output string     Default: "profile.pprof"

Name of the file to write the profile to
--request-timeout string     Default: "0"

The length of time to wait before giving up on a single server request. Non-zero values should contain a corresponding time unit (e.g. 1s, 2m, 3h). A value of zero means don't timeout requests.
-s, --server string

The address and port of the Kubernetes API server
--storage-driver-buffer-duration duration     Default: 1m0s

Writes in the storage driver will be buffered for this duration, and committed to the non memory backends as a single transaction
--storage-driver-db string     Default: "cadvisor"

database name
--storage-driver-host string     Default: "localhost:8086"

database host:port
--storage-driver-password string     Default: "root"

database password
--storage-driver-secure

use secure connection with database
--storage-driver-table string     Default: "stats"

table name
--storage-driver-user string     Default: "root"

database username
--tls-server-name string

Server name to use for server certificate validation. If it is not provided, the hostname used to contact the server is used
--token string

Bearer token for authentication to the API server
--user string

The name of the kubeconfig user to use
--username string

Username for basic authentication to the API server
--version version[=true]

--version, --version=raw prints version information and quits; --version=vX.Y.Z... sets the reported version
--warnings-as-errors

Treat warnings received from the server as errors and exit with a non-zero exit code

See Also

  • kubectl - kubectl controls the Kubernetes cluster manager

Last modified September 04, 2025 at 3:30 PM PST: Update kubectl reference for v1.34 (bdc4bba2a5)