> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://astronomer.io/docs/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Use kubectl to administer Astronomer Software ### Kubectl and Helm [Kubectl](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/install-kubectl/) and [helm](https://helm.sh/docs/using_helm/) are the two primary ways DevOps users will interact/administer the Astronomer Platform. ### Setup Both these tools are needed to deploy Astronomer onto a Kubernetes cluster. We also recommend using [`kubectx`](https://github.com/ahmetb/kubectx) to simplify commands (the rest of this guide will use `kubectx`). ### Base namespace and release The initial `helm install` command to deploy Astronomer requires a namespace to deploy the base platform pods into. ```text wrap theme={null} helm install -f values.yaml . datarouter ``` This deploys a randomly named [release](https://helm.sh/docs/glossary/#release) of our helm charts into the `datarouter` [namespace](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/working-with-objects/namespaces/). All [pods](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/) can be listed in the namespace with kubectl. ```bash wrap theme={null} root@orbiter: datarouter Context "gke_astronomer-dev-190903_us-east4-a_astronomer-dev-lybjumoigv" modified. Active namespace is "datarouter". root@orbiter: kubectl get pods NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE cautious-seal-postgresql-0 1/1 Running 0 2d singed-chimp-alertmanager-0 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-commander-68b95959c5-xb9ht 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-elasticsearch-client-84d85f87fb-lmbsf 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-elasticsearch-client-84d85f87fb-wjpwc 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-elasticsearch-data-0 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-elasticsearch-data-1 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-elasticsearch-exporter-5fc97b847f-52qsq 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-elasticsearch-master-0 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-elasticsearch-master-1 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-elasticsearch-master-2 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-elasticsearch-nginx-9c4bc78-f5zzz 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-fluentd-ztb6k 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-grafana-6df6859854-btdc6 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-houston-86556ffd74-dkbr8 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-kibana-5ccc7b98d4-gk7vb 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-kube-state-78bd89bf47-m7nrm 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-kubed-5699fc79b4-9dz28 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-nginx-5cbdf7967f-2q4dr 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-nginx-default-backend-55788c586-2s9nl 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-astro-ui-748dfd5748-77v66 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-prisma-6ddf8f6784-lfnfr 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-prometheus-0 1/1 Running 0 1h singed-chimp-registry-0 1/1 Running 0 1h ``` Run `helm ls` to list all releases: ```bash wrap theme={null} root@orbiter: helm ls NAME REVISION UPDATED STATUS CHART NAMESPACE cautious-seal 1 Mon May 6 14:37:34 2019 DEPLOYED postgresql-0.18.1 datarouter singed-chimp 3 Thu May 9 12:08:36 2019 DEPLOYED astronomer-0.8.2 datarouter ``` There is a release for Astronomer (`single-chimp`) and postgres (`cautious-seal`) in the `datarouter` namespace. ### Creating new Airflow deployments If you navigate to the Software UI and create a new deployment, it will create a new helm release in a new namespace. ```bash wrap theme={null} root@orbiter helm ls NAME REVISION UPDATED STATUS CHART NAMESPACE accurate-bolide-9914 2 Thu May 9 12:06:06 2019 DEPLOYED airflow-0.8.2 datarouter-accurate-bolide-9914 cautious-seal 1 Mon May 6 14:37:34 2019 DEPLOYED postgresql-0.18.1 datarouter singed-chimp 3 Thu May 9 12:08:36 2019 DEPLOYED astronomer-0.8.2 datarouter ``` The `accurate-bolide-9914` helm release now lives in the a namespace generated by Astronomer named `$basenamespace-release_name` (datarouter-accurate-bolide-9914) and lives on the URL `$release-name-airflow-BASEDOMAIN`. Switching into the `datarouter-accurate-bolide-9914` namespace reveals the Airflow pods. ```bash wrap theme={null} root@orbiter: kubectl get namespaces NAME STATUS AGE datarouter Active 2d datarouter-accurate-bolide-9914 Active 1h default Active 222d root@orbiter: kubens datarouter-accurate-bolide-9914 root@orbiter: kubectl get pods NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE accurate-bolide-9914-pgbouncer-57b46d67bb-b4tpw 2/2 Running 0 1h accurate-bolide-9914-scheduler-7d4f5596b5-r457d 2/2 Running 0 1h accurate-bolide-9914-statsd-84d76854fb-wz45c 1/1 Running 0 1h accurate-bolide-9914-webserver-86bcbc48b-5xcwr 1/1 Running 0 1h accurate-bolide-9914-worker-0 1/1 Running 0 1m accurate-bolide-9914-redis-0 1/1 Running 0 1m accurate-bolide-9914-flower-84f7d67fbd-q5sd7 1/1 Running 0 1m ``` Since this deployment is running the Celery executor with 1 worker, there are pods for Redis and Flower. ### Managing Pods Airflow logs can be fetched directly from the underlying pods: ```bash wrap theme={null} root@orbiter: kubectl logs accurate-bolide-9914-scheduler-7d4f5596b5-r457d Waiting for host: accurate-bolide-9914-pgbouncer 6543 Initializing airflow database... [2019-05-09 17:53:22,865] {settings.py:182} INFO - settings.configure_orm(): Using pool settings. pool_size=5, pool_recycle=1800, pid=18 [2019-05-09 17:53:24,345] {__init__.py:51} INFO - Using executor KubernetesExecutor DB: postgresql://accurate_bolide_9914_airflow:***@accurate-bolide-9914-pgbouncer:6543/accurate-bolide-9914-metadata [2019-05-09 17:53:24,969] {db.py:350} INFO - Creating tables INFO [alembic.runtime.migration] Context impl PostgresqlImpl. INFO [alembic.runtime.migration] Will assume transactional DDL. Done. [2019-05-09 17:53:28,159] {settings.py:182} INFO - settings.configure_orm(): Using pool settings. pool_size=5, pool_recycle=1800, pid=8 [2019-05-09 17:53:29,663] {__init__.py:51} INFO - Using executor KubernetesExecutor ____________ _____________ ____ |__( )_________ __/__ /________ __ ____ /| |_ /__ ___/_ /_ __ /_ __ \_ | /| / / ___ ___ | / _ / _ __/ _ / / /_/ /_ |/ |/ / _/_/ |_/_/ /_/ /_/ /_/ \____/____/|__/ [2019-05-09 17:53:30,338] {jobs.py:1500} INFO - Starting the scheduler [2019-05-09 17:53:30,339] {jobs.py:1508} INFO - Running execute loop for -1 seconds [2019-05-09 17:53:30,340] {jobs.py:1509} INFO - Processing each file at most -1 times [2019-05-09 17:53:30,340] {jobs.py:1512} INFO - Searching for files in /usr/local/airflow/dags [2019-05-09 17:53:30,341] {jobs.py:1514} INFO - There are 2 files in /usr/local/airflow/dags [2019-05-09 17:53:30,343] {kubernetes_executor.py:691} INFO - Start Kubernetes executor ``` A full description of a pods status, resource request, and other data can be found with the `describe` command ```bash wrap theme={null} root@orbiter: kubectl describe po/accurate-bolide-9914-scheduler-7d4f5596b5-g72pg Name: accurate-bolide-9914-scheduler-7d4f5596b5-g72pg Namespace: datarouter-accurate-bolide-9914 Priority: 0 PriorityClassName: Node: gke-astronomer-dev-l-astronomer-dev-n-1c6fc689-s8pg/10.150.0.77 Start Time: Thu, 09 May 2019 13:53:20 -0400 Labels: component=scheduler platform=singed-chimp pod-template-hash=3809115261 release=accurate-bolide-9914 tier=airflow workspace=cjvgu6b2d00110b785tfxyqp0 ``` Pods can also be deleted as a way to restart any Airflow component. ```text wrap theme={null} root@orbiter: kubectl delete po/accurate-bolide-9914-scheduler-7d4f5596b5-r457d ``` This will delete that copy of the pod and spin up a new one. All pods in an Airflow deployment are meant to be stateless, so deleting one and letting it recreate should not cause any ### Other Resources For additional `kubectl` commands, check out this [Kubernetes Cheat Sheet](https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubectl/cheatsheet/).